


Other Worlds: Act 1

by FullSizeRender, SyntheticAngel



Series: Other Worlds [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Adventure, Aliens, Alternate Reality, Dystopian Future, Friendship, OC, Original Characters - Freeform, Other, Outer Space, Romance, Sci-Fi, Science Fiction, Slice of Life, Technology, original - Freeform, original nonhuman characters, scifi, space, tech, works
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:26:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22758502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FullSizeRender/pseuds/FullSizeRender, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SyntheticAngel/pseuds/SyntheticAngel
Summary: For years the night sky called her name, but if io knew the price to respond she might’ve tried a little harder to ignore them. Now she’s learning how much more life has to offer when she’s among the stars rather than staring at them. Sure, the Earth is gone but hey - there are always other worlds.
Series: Other Worlds [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1540339
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	1. I

As it turns out, outer space is only marginally different from life on earth.

io expected the weird plants, unbreathable air, and extraterrestrial pink soil. She expected to struggle with finding humans in the outpost she landed on, and playing the game of what she could eat that wouldn’t leave her turning purple. After crawling out from her escape pod like a blind and battered moth from its gooey fallen chrysalis, she even expected to have to learn how to walk properly again. 

What she didn’t expect was to hear alarms from seemingly nowhere, _unstable atmosphere detected_ , and the helmet encasing her reddened, sniffling face. _Stabilizing_. She felt the pressure leave, like popping her ears on a plane. The back of her neck stung, as if reminding her there was a foreign object there. She didn't recognize the suit she was wearing; it definitely wasn't what she’d been wearing at takeoff. So she’d been set up with a life-preserving device of some kind, she reasoned, an implant that fused with her spine in ways she didn’t understand. Clearly it could scan for environmental abnormalities and notify her of them, but the purpose of the meters and graphs on the edges of her visor remained murky at best. Her head throbbed and her bones ached, but this device was going to keep her alive out here whether she liked it or not.

Even after she found somewhere to sleep, things didn’t improve much. At least the alarms stopped.

-

io stares up at a blank ceiling, arms tucked behind her head. This room feels like her childhood bedroom: small, filled with the essentials but missing the cheesy sci-fi movie posters and vintage launch photos. The bed under her is gray and white. A dim light along the wall illuminates the minimal furniture: a dusty table, a battered chair, and sterile paneled floor. Trash sits atop the table in disarray. There is a window, but looking outside of it would be sadder than to look at the ceiling.

Grief had hit like a freighter the moment she’d gotten a room all to herself. In the short time she’d been there she spent her days like this, or curled up on her side, tears prickling at the corners of her eyes. She couldn’t stop thinking about the violent death of her home as she’d helplessly sailed further and further into space. The shock had dropped her to her knees and she wept over the lost people like a child struck senseless. She wept for those not privileged enough to have made it off-planet. For friends that she bitterly wished she had spent more time with. She wept for her family, because if Ares had been telling the truth and they were safe somewhere, they must be missing her just as dearly.

She wept for the world, and herself. Earth is gone. Everything she knew is gone.

Yes, she’d found a spaceship to stay on, somewhere to sleep at night, but a week had passed by already and they still hadn’t taken off. Her goal of seeing her family seems as distant as planet Venus on a cold winter evening. She still wore the spacesuit that had deployed upon emerging because, embarrassingly, she doesn’t know how to take it off. It sticks to her like a natural outer layer, a liquid matte black second skin with gold accents and a frustrating lack of instructions. By some miracle she guessed the magic words and got the helmet to deactivate by the end of the first night, and the suit to at least let her go to the bathroom, but the rest wouldn’t budge. She can’t imagine the kind of stink that awaits underneath. To top it all off, she’d eaten through all the snacks her escape pod had provided as a post-landing survival pack. Staying in this room is beginning to do more harm than good.

The kind soul that had allowed her onto this ship tried speaking through the door once--his name is Chico and he’s a bird, like an actual bird with golden feathers and a black beak, but taller than her and without the mid-walk head bobbing. At the time she couldn’t shake the images of fire and ghosts of pain enough to answer him. Memories of quiet sunsets with twinkling distant planets and satellites crawling by overhead. She couldn’t avoid the outside world and her new crewmates forever.

She sets a shaky hand on the bed and pushes herself into a seated position. 

Everything aches still, but substantially less so a week after the crash landing she hadn’t been awake for. She flinches as the automated doors open. The hallway is empty and she vaguely wonders if this vessel is meant to fly as she passes by a cracked window. The metal floor under her is scuffed and rust creeps out from a lifted panel on the wall. 

_Low blood sugar detected._ The robotic voice that walked her through an unceremonious “welcome to space” speech back in the travel pod is in her head now, and io isn’t sure if that’s a symptom of space travel or undiagnosed brain damage. She rubs the back of her neck, over the ridges of her hard diamond-shaped implant. It has to be that device.

This is only the second time she’s walked through the ship and not gone directly to her room, but by some miracle she stumbles to the ship “kitchen” and peeks inside. She freezes the second she lays eyes on the figure at a battered dining table, but by then it’s too late to escape.

“Oh gods you _are_ alive!”

A mass of ruffled blonde feathers ungracefully leaps out of its chair, stumbling on its way toward the newly emerged earthling. Not even embarrassment could keep Chico from expressing his excitement - or singing discordant squawks of joy.

“io! I was so worried! I let you onto the ship and you just...just...disappeared!” Chico chitters, loose feathers filling the air as he flaps his wings about. He’d love to give her a welcoming hug to make her feel more at home, but his better judgement kicks in and he opts to bounce in place instead to let out his overwhelming burst of energy.

“And you looked so sad when I found you! You still look sad, honestly! But you’re out here, so that must mean you’re feeling a little better! Did you even eat anything over the past week?” The Avem’s rapid chirping hardly misses a beat as he quickly turns to point at the ship’s rusty fridge before whirling back around, sending more feathers drifting to the ground. io’s wary gaze follows him and her shoulders visibly tense at his high energy. “I didn’t even know humans could _survive_ that long without food! If you’re still hungry we’ve got, uh...mixed seeds! I think I left half a bag of chips in there the other day, some water...you’re welcome to have some! You’re part of the crew, after all!”

“No, that’s okay.” She stammers, though the offer reminds her of salted sunflower seeds at childhood baseball games. Gone, too. She cautiously sidles around him to open the fridge and see for herself what the contents are, avoiding eye contact as much as possible.

She doesn’t hate him, but her throat feels tight at the burning memories. Mentioning her outward appearance invites insecurity and distress.

“Chico, thanks for letting me stay here this last week, but when do we, you know...leave?”

“Leave? We can leave whenever! The docking bay’s door just needs to be shoved! Like, really hard. Sometimes Iris has to open it for me.” Chico offers her a bright smile and an extended wing toward the ship’s exit to guide his hermit friend to the outside world. It isn’t until the kitchen light above him flickers that he understands her lack of a positive response.

“Oh. Ohhhh. You mean offworld, don’t you? Aw, shoot. That’s...a little harder.” Chico’s cheerful demeanor wanes, his talons ticking and tapping nervously against the worn metal flooring. “Our ship’s shape hasn’t exactly been ship shape in months, I’m afraid. I’ve been trying to hire an engineer, but I’m working two jobs as it is to make sure we get food and we keep our parking spot.”

Her back faces him while she rummages through shelves and half-eaten foods she couldn’t hope to identify, so he can’t see the concerned furrow of her brow. The stench of rotting meat lunges at her nose and she recoils.

“There’s another person on this ship?” She asks through her hands, eyes watering. Not that she’s been pining for more interaction in her current mental state, but she wonders why this mysterious stranger hasn’t been helping poor Chico out more than...well, not at all.

“Is it that you don't have time or there aren’t any engineers around?”

“Of course there’s another person! Oh, you probably haven’t seen Iris because you were all cooped up. But she’s...uh...” Chico finds himself at a loss for words, a shiver leaving his golden feathers standing on end. “N-Never mind. She doesn’t come out of her room all that often, but she’s tried to bring home a few engineers! It’s weird though - I see them walk in as I’m leaving for work, but they’re never there when I come back. No bill, no repairs - nothing. I knew the ship was a pile of junk, but do you think it’s scaring people off?”

A grimace grows on io’s face the longer that Chico speaks. Whoever this Iris person is, she doesn’t sound like a people-person anyway. Or maybe the issue is that she is?

“Alright well,” io hesitantly begins, still far too scared of this new world she crash landed into just a week ago to be so boldly offering anything. The grumbling of her stomach seems to agree that leaving the ship is her best option. She figuratively rolls up her sleeves. “I guess I could...try to find an engineer for us? Just tell me where to go. I haven’t actually been outside much yet.”

“Really? You’d do that for us?!” Chico chirps and tweets with delight, wings flapping so furiously that he hovers off the ground for a moment. “Finally! I thought we’d never get off the ground! Praise the High Winds, I haven’t been this happy in weeks!”

He excitedly flutters his way out of the kitchen, disappearing around the corner for a few moments before returning with a crumpled tourist map clutched in his feathered hands. The sounds of crinkling filling the empty dining room before he finally waves her over to look at the unfurled map.

“Okay, so I got this map when we got here and it’s _definitely_ not as nice as the little fun facts on the sides make it sound. Buuuuut it’ll get you where you need to go! So, the junkyard is riiiiiiight-” His finger lands on an area marked only as ‘Industrial Zone’, highlighted in red. “Here! Feel free to take that map with you, I don’t think I’m gonna get lost on the way to work anymore. I’m a little light on money, but I’ve got some credits if that’ll help!”

Chico fishes out a couple of credit chips and sets them on top of the map, then steps away to give io a little extra space to examine the map.

“Also - after this I’ll stop, I swear - if you bring anyone back, please tell them that the smell of rotting flesh is normal. It’s Iris’ room, and it’s not about to change any time soon. Hopefully they won’t mind!”

io nods once in understanding, or at least as best an understanding as she can for what crude directions she’s given. _So that’s what that horrid smell is_ , though io is far too desperate to start criticising a free place to sleep.

The last time she’d explored a new place was moving to the city for work, and nearly drowning in the following chaos associated with significant lifestyle changes. Doing it all again, but now in _space_ , seems insurmountable. She exhales through her nostrils, offers a half smile to his well wishes, and freezes mid-stride with map and credit chips in hand.

“Before I go, do we have some sort of comm system?” She asks. “You know, in case I get...murdered?” Immediately she regrets the dry humor, seeing as this is the first real conversation they’ve had. 

“Aha...yeah.” Chico sharply inhales, digging around in his breast pocket to produce a single earpiece. His smile feels forced, eyes drifting to be anywhere that io isn’t. “I only have one left, and it’s a little old. Iris has the other, but...maybe your suit can just sync up or whatever? That way I can still guide you around town, and we don’t have to open her door. You might even get to hear Iris every now and then! That’ll be, uh...yeah!”

She takes the earpiece as if it were going to blow up should she hold it incorrectly. Never mind the grime, she worries that whoever had it last met an unfortunate fate. Wires are exposed in a way that even without professional training, she can determine is a huge shock hazard. Little blue lights on the circular outer shell twinkle at her when she presses the largest button. 

“My suit? Oh, right.” She would be embarrassed for forgetting so quickly, but nobody had properly prepared her for everything that happened. Her lips press into a thin line and she struggles to remember the vague operating instructions. She hadn’t had the energy to attempt deciphering the messy command list. 

“Uh...synchronize.”

No response. She tries again to no avail, before getting too embarrassed and shoving the tech in a skintight pocket. Dismissively she says she’ll figure it out later, and trades struggling with the earpiece to struggling with the door he mentioned is _also_ busted.

It takes both their efforts to pry it open but it finally moves, whining the whole way through. Her muscles protest too, so used to the inertia of a cozy bed. Her boots click against the metal stairs as she descends and waves goodbye to Chico. A reddish sun hangs low in the sky, reminding her of earth’s humble star. Even its rays feel familiarly warm against her skin. For a second she could’ve closed her eyes and pretended she still stands on her home planet, but then the ship door slams shut behind her and cuts the daydream short. What’s left is the unexplored territory of an alien planet, and a bustling marketplace where presumably she would find _somebody_ to help them take off.

She steels herself and heads for the busy walkways.

Voices meld together as she passes stalls. She sees shopkeepers’ mouths move but the words she hears don’t match the movements. The stench of rotting fish wrinkles her nose and she swats flies away as she passes by. _Good to know those still exist on other planets, too_. A better smell convinces her to trade some of her credits and her stomach thanks her. One down, one mission to go. She feels eyes on her here and there, blinking, beady black eyes of alien faces that curiously follow. Paranoia, another familiar but uninvited friend, sits on her shoulders a little heavier here than it did on earth. It points out the way people walking seem to avoid her, how a flat-faced fish man turns his nose up at her, or how a young boy with flowers in his hair and a green tint to his cheeks stares like she’d been a steak to a starving dog. The further in she walks, the more she realizes she has yet to see any other human being. 

She tosses her trash and opens her map up with shaking hands. Chico’s grocery list scrawled on the side adds nothing to the confusing outpost layout. The junkyard sits at the east edge, just north of an area Chico wrote in bold red letters _DO NOT GO EVER_. Promising.

“Heya human, got a sec?” A distinctly east coast inflection grabs her attention. In any other situation she would have started walking faster at the sound of a stranger calling out from the street, but curiosity gets the best of her. She turns and meets an unfamiliar primate face. 

“Hi.”

“Ya look a little lost, pal, a little fresh and no offense, like ya really don’t belong here. But that’s okay, that’s alright, I’m not one ta judge a book by it’s cover anymore, ya know? Not after Gorky found the kid and the kid straight murdered ‘im one night after star-hoppin’ with the boys. Anyway.”

io has half a mind to walk away after that, but she finds herself wondering how the hell he manages to talk without dropping the cigarette hanging halfway out of his mouth. It casts an orange glow on his face, easy to see in the shadows he loiters in. Her eyes follow his hand as it reveals a crumpled flyer from his grease-stained jacket.

“So the kid. Ya see this kid? This kid right here.” He points to possibly the worst drawing of a wanted criminal she’s ever seen, a mere scribble with some specks of color. It looks like a green blob, really, if the green blob went through a food processor and could hold a knife. “I need you ta tell me if you seen this kid. And if you seen ‘im, you gotta tell me where he is.”

“I haven’t.” io says, “But if I do then I’ll let you know. I’m looking for a mechanic though, am I going the right way?”

He grunts and shoves the flyer back into a pocket about as carefully as he’d taken it out.

“Yea yea, up the ways and past the neon heart sign. Junk District. Yea. But human, I’m beggin’ ya, ya look like a good person, if ya see this guy you bring ‘im here, alright? Right where I’m standing. Not to security, don’t get them involved, it’s not about them. Right here. Bring ‘im here.”

_Right_ , she thinks with a grimace, especially after he discloses that this mystery blob isn’t afraid to use his knife. It isn’t her problem at the end of the day, in fact she thinks it sounds like way more trouble than she needs right now. The dark path her map says to take beckons. Down this winding alleyway, sheets of metal begin curling off the sides of buildings, bones of skyscrapers reach towards the sky. Gruff looking travelers threaten to shove her out of their paths should she decide not to move for them. And while no alarms set off, ozone permeates so strongly she fears she might never be able to smell normally again. 

This part of the outpost is colder somehow, the sun blotted out by debris piles so high they could be considered buildings themselves, but it feels distinctly like _space_. The kind of space she daydreamt about as a kid: wet metal walkways, neon lights, and stars above as far as the eye can see. She hadn’t noticed before, but two moons (or perhaps planets?) loom overhead nestled in a blanket of gas clouds. In a way, the outpost reminds her of Horizon I, but instead of a heavily skewed human to extraterrestrial ratio, she fears she might be the only human here. Bright signs point to the Junk District, as that charismatic stranger had called it, like arrows pointing to salvation.

A red-feathered patron storms out of the remains of a warehouse not marked on her map but in the dead center of Chico’s drawn circle. A small sign burns on the side, “OPEN.” She can tell he’s a patron by the way he mutters _no mechanic on duty_ and _am I supposed to do the doctor’s job too now_? while moving past her. Something about being too busy for a rescue when he’s got a delivery to make.

She slides in before the door closes with doubt on the forefront of her mind. Why wasn’t that Iris person helping out, anyway? Considering the circumstances, io hardly feels qualified to be running errands on their behalf. She stands in waiting, already thinking she’s walked herself into trouble. 

“Look, walkin’ in and outta my shop isn’t gonna change my situation, ya feather-faced motherfu-” A portly primate guffaws with a familiar east coast cadence, menacingly pointing a warped monkey wrench toward the door where he assumed his previous conversation partner had come barging back in. Instead he finds io, and is quick to correct himself by tossing the heavy tool over his broad shoulders. “Ah, hell. Hey, welcome to Otto’s. We turn junk into slightly more palatable junk. And fix things sometimes.”

He looks to have almost extended a hand before turning around to wrap his hand with a filthy handkerchief, instead setting his unwrapped palm on the counter and shoving the wrapped hand into his front pocket.

“Th’ name’s Bido. Otto’s been missin’ for about a week, so I’m in charge. If ya got something small I can fix it for ya. But if you’re lookin’ for someone for a big job…” A few strands of gray fur fall into his eyes as he uses his head to motion toward the empty junk shop. Discarded tools, unused parts, crumpled invoices and a fine layer of filth are his only company now, and they seem more at home than he does. “Well, we’re a little short-staffed. The boys’ve been droppin’ like flies lately, it’s aggravatin.”

His nostrils flare as he violently snorts, his hand clenched with barely-subdued frustration. She feels her stomach sink, but that could also be the stall food she scarfed down.

“I even stuck a tracker on the new guy, but it died out a couple days ago. Who even knows where he ended up. God dammit. They’re gone, and I’m missing too many fingers to keep this place afloat on my own...”

_Good grief_ , she thinks with subdued disappointment, _is all of outer space like this?_ She runs a gloved hand through her hair, deja vu creeping up far too early in her journey for her liking.

“io. How big is a big job? I’m on a spaceship about the size of this warehouse. I don’t think it can even roll downhill at the moment if we pushed it.” She fishes out the rest of her allowance and holds it up unceremoniously, no attempt to pretend like she knew the value of space currency. “And this is what I’ve got at the moment.”

“Anything bigger than maybe an electrical fixture is out, and I’d need an extra set of hands to even get that done.” 

Bido chokes as she holds out the paltry showing of credit chips, looking away to try and regain his composure...only to look back at the two chips in disgust. He snorts again, now looking over his customer with a sharper eye. His lips purse in contemplation, moments of silence passing before he finally speaks.

“Look...I can’t take that from ya. Wouldn’t be right of me. Buuuuut if you do me a solid, I’ll set ya up with a free repair job. You willing to get that fancy suit of yours dirty?”

She fights the urge to scream in frustration. Never mind the suit, in fact _fuck_ the suit, it’s a reminder of her hopeless journey into what she now knows is a road of dead ends and taking on everybody’s chores. One more reminder of her last earthly moments and the engineer who separated her from her family and put her in a metal cage under the guise of ‘love.’ Right.

“What do I have to do?” She asks in defeat.

“Glad ya asked. I’d hate to turn ya away. So,”

The primate’s wrapped hand fishes out two sheets of crumpled paper, unfurling them to reveal two different - but equally awful - drawings, one of a green pile of pudding with a knife and eyes and another a black triangle with sticks for legs.

“I don’t know much about the guy, but I know him and the crew have been handin’ money back and forth too often for my taste. He’s also the last guy they visited before they disappeared. If ya find him, bring him here. Not to outpost security - to me. I’ll deal with ‘em. And on the right-”

Bido’s unwrapped hand taps the angular drawing a few times, sliding the paper a little closer to her.

“That’s my new guy. Damn fine engineer, but a bad habit of runnin’ his mouth. He went out with the boys a couple days ago, and hasn’t been seen since. I got his last known location saved to an old GPS, you can take it with you as long as you bring it - and him - back in one piece. Do that for me, and you got yourself a fixed ship. Hell, I’ll give ya the parts myself.”

He extends his hand across the counter with a tenuous side smile, now ready to offer his hand to his new favorite customer.

“We got a deal, io?”

As if she has a choice. She shakes his hand with a smile, because someone ought to have manners even if she wants to scream and cry her exasperation. It’s still better than nothing. A brief _where did you last see him_ conversation later and he marks her map. Right where Chico’s bold red letters beg her to reconsider. Where she realizes that if she wants to see another human being again, she might have to get her hands _actually_ dirty. 

She can’t help but find this whole situation humorously torturous. Her goal had been so simple and now, another charity case! Of course the last possible person to fix a spaceship got himself into a mess. And of course she agrees to hunt him down, because looking for one guy, so she could go find a different guy, who would allow her to find the _human_ guys who shot her off their dying planet is exactly how this new world works. She didn’t say that though; Bido seems far too distraught about his situation to care about hers, and plus it would have been mean. Earth might have been ruined but it didn’t have to ruin her, too.

Outside the air is colder; the alien sun has set and a purple glow from blinking advertisements replaces the lost light.

That leaves only one thing left: figure out that communication device so Chico knows she has a lead, and also so he knows she isn't dead. She rounds the corner of the warehouse and leans against the wall for privacy. The place looks like a ghost town now, save for stragglers here and there in industrial gear heading out the way she came. A certain loneliness returns as she fishes out the broken earpiece and rolls it between her fingers. Tears prick at the corners of her eyes as her mind drifts to the alien workers passing her by, going about their lives like she had. _Maybe your suit can just sync up or whatever?_ Chico’s hopelessly optimistic suggestion echoes in her mind. 

“Alright...” she mutters, staring at her hands. “Suit: synchronize.”

Nothing happens.

“Detect device.”

She throws her head back at the following quiet, eyes squeezed shut. _Don’t cry, don’t cry_ , she breathes through her nose as if that would ease the tightness in her throat. She tries other commands with significantly less spirit, thoughts of having been stranded on this alien planet and forgotten breathing down her neck. Sure, she would still try to find the mechanic whether she got in contact with Chico or not, but at least he’d know where she was going if the worst case scenario happened. And if she can’t use her suit now, what then if she needs to defend herself? The silence taunts her. 

She wipes her runny nose and sets off towards the mark on her map. Staying put sets her further back. Staying put back on earth is what got her into accounting and not engineering. _Stay put_ is probably what Ares wants, but she isn’t going to let him find her first, no. She would get off this planet with or without the stupid suit’s help, and get the answers she wants.

And then, as the streets get shadier and the faces get uglier, her steps become less and less confident again until she finds herself like a moon in the shadow of an eclipsing planet. The map leads her to a lonely but busy shack in the east most end of the Junk District. She hears rowdy banter from even a few hundred feet away. Her angry muttering slows to a halt and she swallows dryly, not unnoticed by some of the goons Bido definitely warned her would be there. Not charging, but they don’t exactly hide the fact they have batons on their belts. Two outside, from what she can see, and they approach with three amused red eyes each.

Immediately she regrets coming alone.

“Shit.”

_Voice recognition complete. Commands are now available._


	2. II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> io travels solo into a club of hostile aliens, in search of an engineer to fix her spaceship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, and welcome aboard!
> 
> Please keep arms, legs, tentacles and eye stalks inside the spaceship at all times. By continuing to read, you have relinquished all rights to sue in the case of modular displacement via black hole and/or other untested methods of space exploration.
> 
> Thank you, and enjoy your flight.
> 
> (Thank you to @ursus_canis on Twitter for beta reading. Visit @syntheticcangel on Twitter for visual character shenanigans)

“You. Stop. You new face. Unknown.”

_ No exact match found for the current language. Initiating adaptive translation process. _

The first thug’s garbled alien speech makes io’s translation program falter, an incomplete translation hitting her ears as he strides forward. She spies a navy blue baton prominently displayed on his waist, the thug purposely opening his coat and allowing his scaly hand to rest on the hilt of the stick. 

“Speak. Clothing too nice. How located? You live with police?”

The second alien isn’t any easier to listen to, pushing off the wall he had been leaning against to assume a similar stance. It’s clear they’ve been through this song and dance before - likely with someone that spoke their language. Each of their eyes blink independently, constantly trained on the lone stranger. She looks back and forth between the two in panic.

“I’m looking for a mechanic.” She states but her voice waivers.  _ Elevated heart rate detected.  _ They’re two, maybe three heads taller than her and she swallows dryly. Nothing comes easy in space but she sure wishes she had something to reach for, too.

“No mechanic here. Lost little girl!” The first alien yanks the metal-tipped baton from its holder, waving it toward the alley she had emerged from. His three red eyes narrow, homing in on the lack of confidence in her speech. “You have credit? Pass currency, we let you move away - alive.”

_ Closest match for current language found - casual variant of Piscis dialect. Adjusting audio feed. _

“Yes, hand over the balance of your credits. I am quite thirsty, and even more impatient. Heh heh.” The second alien holds his hand out expectantly, his slimy white palm shimmering under the light of the two moons. “I would hate to trip and  _ accidentally _ break your face.”

The baton’s tip erupts with neon red sparks as if on queue, the brief flash casting their scowls under a menacing crimson light.

“Make your choice!” The first alien barks, aiming the sparking baton squarely at io and jabbing it menacingly into her personal space. Her heart skips a beat and she staggers backwards.

_ A weapon has been drawn in your vicinity. Deploy countermeasures? _

She hesitates as the situation escalates faster than she can keep track of. Fight? io doesn’t know how to  _ fight _ ! She’d turned down self defense classes thinking that her back street fighting risk was pretty low in becoming an accountant. Her fists ball up and release, she can’t steady her breath enough to feel normal. Maybe a plan would’ve helped, but she hadn’t thought that far. She’s already at a disadvantage, considering they’re poised to strike.

“What are my options?” She stammers in response to her suit, taking a step back and looking like she might dart.

“Options?” The slimier first alien gawks. “You give us what you have or we  _ kill you _ .”

_ Close combat detected. Recommended weapon: compact ionized thermal plasma saber. _

“Plasma what,” she says and before her eyes the vague shape of a sword materializes in her right hand. Those same strange tiles she’d seen on her arms and legs harden into black metal and-just for fun!-the blade crackles and buzzes red like a holiday sparkler. If she had been trying to avoid combat before, this doesn’t make her case. She mirrors their stunned expressions for a split second.

_ Engage. _

She explodes forward without thinking and swings the blade before they can hit her first. She expects the blade to stick but there’s no slowing as she makes contact. No bones stop the motion; her sword slices right through the maritime alien’s wrist with a hiss. A countershaded hand holding a baton drops with a thud. What’s left is a perfectly cauterized stump and  _ io _ is the first to scream.

_ Hostile One disarmed. _

“Holy SHIT I’m so sorry!”

The other fish man swings wildly while the first howls in pain. Commotion from inside the building thankfully drowns out the wailing. She ducks to avoid the wide arcs of the crackling stick and stumbles to the ground. A sword. Fabricated from nothing but just as real as she is.  _ Spicy sword? _ She yelps as the second alien screams, swinging the baton from above his head. His violent flailing misses the mark entirely, chipping the stone beneath them as io rolls out of the way. She scrambles to her feet with the aftershocks of adrenaline as the weapon cracks against the ground. Her sword hums as though waiting for the next strike.

It doesn’t wait too long for the next opportunity.

“I’ll bring your head to my boss!”

The unharmed man lunges for her. The baton could’ve had teeth and still not have been more threatening than it is right now. On her feet and ready, io parries the fish man’s baton with the broad side of her blade, leaving him open to a quick, low sweep. The goon lands flat on his face, but his blue-green foot remains upright and ready. She smells burnt fish and gags.

The first alien stops howling long enough to reach for the baton clutched in his severed hand. Her legs spring to life on their own, recognizing that she isn’t safe before she can. She’s never moved so fast in her life, and when she reaches him her sword plunges straight into his back with the force of all her weight. Surreal. Her sword fizzles and burns brighter as she twists it. The alien drops, and her chest heaves labored breaths.

_ Vital signs of Hostile Two fading below standard threshold for consciousness. Rapid response scan indicates that no other weapons are detected. Congratulations. _

io taps her temple to retract her helmet once her suit gives her the all clear, letting the cool night air wash over her face. It starts off as deep, weighty breaths to keep her heart from leaping out of her chest, but she can’t keep herself steady enough to do anything more than hyperventilate and sputter. Her eyes squeeze shut to prevent herself from giving in to morbid curiosity, but it doesn’t stop that rotten smell from embedding itself in her nose. Bile stings the back of her throat. Her knees buckle.

Bido  _ did _ warn her that it’d be dangerous, so she can’t be upset with him, but...

He never said she might have to  _ kill _ . She wipes her nose on an arm, coughing as the combined stench of burnt flesh, sweat and cigarettes culminates and assaults her senses. No sirens, no onlookers, no police. It seems like those around here made a habit of staying out of business they needn’t be in.  _ Ya see, no good people go down that-a ways. _ io finally catches her breath and the plasma sword retracts under the light of her next obstacle.

_ This is only the beginning, io, get it together. _

Similar thoughts swirl in her head. And what about Chico? She attempts to synchronize to the earpiece’s frequency again and finds success in pairing, but she hears only static. Considering this detour is significantly further out than Chico had planned for her, she wouldn’t be surprised if the signal is too weak to reach him. A sigh. She mutters to the suit for a change of clothing and shoulders her way through the door.

It’s a bar. A hard frown masks her fear and she hunches to keep a low profile. That’s how it works in the movies, after all. Voices meld together and her suit struggles to translate them all in real time, though actually navigating through the bar isn’t easy either. Every other step toward the bar she finds herself apologizing to someone - or something. She doesn’t get any positive responses, but it makes her feel better to at least attempt some earthling manners.

io squeezes her way into a seat, habitually waving down the bartender before quickly realizing that she has no idea what she’s supposed to ask for. Alcohol already made her stomach turn on Earth; there’s no way in hell she was going to try to drink something that looked like a wiggling egg yolk in fizzy fruit punch.

“What do you want?”

“Oh thank god, I can actually understand you.” io exhales sharply before leaning over the counter to gesture him closer. “Look, I’m...new in town! And I’m looking for a little...fun. Like...the kind of fun that I can lose a lot of money on.”

“Hmm.” The bartender’s three eyes blink individually as he processes io’s words, then walks away in silence. The hairs on io’s neck stand on end, a chill dancing down her spine. Leaving without saying anything is never a good sign.

“Oh? Need some fun, do ya?” The slimy alien to her left drunkenly croaks, the blue air sacs on his cheeks inflating and deflating excitedly. “Cuz I own a VR Holoclub with environments so real you can  _ taste ‘em _ . For a, uh, fee of course. Ribbit.”

“ _ Taste  _ them? Uh, that sounds-”

“Again with this shit?” A gravelly voice on io’s right rumbles, and a mushroom woman throws back an unidentifiable beverage. “Management warned you about peddling your shitty club, Igslav. You know how the boss feels about you trying to peel off customers.” 

“Y’know what?” Igslav slams a webbed hand against the counter, drawing glares from a few irate patrons. “I’m getting reeeeeal tired of this ‘boss’ person telling me how I’m supposed to live my life! If he’s got a problem with me promoting my club, let  _ him _ come out here and tell me to stop!”

io shrinks in her barstool, eyes darting from one end of the bar to the other, looking for the bartender - and a way out.

“Boss is a busy man, so he doesn’t have time to deal with the riff raff. And unless you want to be  _ dragged _ in to see him, I’d suggest you shut up and drink.”

“Fuck you!” Igslav angrily spits, and a glob of fluorescent green goo splatters against the mushroom woman’s face.

Her expression twists from surprise to fury within a second, and regret creeps onto Igslav’s once he realizes just how much he’s escalated the dispute.

io has just enough time to duck under the counter before the woman lunges, tackling the belligerent man and wrestling him to the ground. Others are quick to jump into the fray, some with their own grievances against Igslav and others just itching to get violent. Before long it’s an all-out brawl in the bar, the initial aggression like blood in the water.

Amidst the chairs and glasses thrown, broken tables and rearranged faces, a terrified io stands alone at the counter and watches as the bartender calmly emerges from a back room with a datapad tucked under his arm.

“First time customer fee is 500 credits, non-negotiable. Member dues are 100 credits at the end of each month.” He remains stoic as he slides the datapad across the counter and io snatches it up, slapping the credit chip Chico gave her onto the pad and sloppily signing her name. “Entrance is in the back of the bar. Mind your manners while you’re down there, and please - pay your debts.”

“Can I just go into the backroom and get in that way? Because all of this,” io motions toward the indoor battlefield, “is a bit, uh-“

“No. Employees only.” Each of his eyes blink at once as he shrugs, tucking the datapad under his arm and entering the room once again.

“Terrible customer service...” io mumbles, climbing onto the bar to get a better view of where she’s supposed to go. There’s only one door that she can spot in the back, unlabeled and splattered with blood.

“How the hell do I get back there?” She muses, and the implant on her back pulses.

_ Situational analysis complete. Recommended method of travel: above the crowd. _

Her mind reverberates with foreign robotic thoughts that...actually weren’t a bad idea. She begrudgingly gives credit to Ares; he might’ve done a lot wrong, but this suit certainly wasn’t one of them. 

Rearing back and getting a running start, io leaps with her arms extended. She snatches a low hanging light and kicks her legs out to swing, using her momentum to send herself crashing into a group of aliens near the door.

She’s quick to pick herself up off the sticky floor and make a mad dash for the exit before they realize they had been assaulted from the air. She shoves the door open with her shoulder and kicks it shut afterward. 

With the chaos of the bar behind her - literally - she presses her back to the door and chuckles breathlessly. Unbelievable. Inconceivable!

She exhales at the empty and relieving sight of a storage room. It’s the emptiest storage room she’s ever seen with only a few bottles of glowing liquor and some paper goods, but she can’t say that it’s surprising. Regular bars don't have that kind of security. Or regular missing persons cases. People fighting just outside slam against the door at io’s back and she lunges forward - they’d be in here any moment now, and stars forbid somebody find the bodies outside.

“Is there another exit?” She asks aloud while she searches the room. The banging on the door gets louder. Empty storage racks line the dimly lit room and she jumps when a digital grid suddenly stretches out before her eyes. Oh right, the  _ suit _ .

_ Abnormality located. _

io hurries to the opposite end of the room and yanks the shelf forward so that it crashes to the ground, just in time to glance back at the opening door. Lo and behold she finds a smaller panel with a single handle. She wastes no time in sliding the new exit open and shutting that too while people pour in.

The next hallway is long but she runs towards the sounds far too loud to be coming from behind her.  _ This mechanic guy better be alive _ . She finally opens a door at the end.

The room before her is far more spacious; it’s a cage ring, in fact, with an audience sitting in rafters and standing at the wire. Shouting. So many people shouting and watching the four-legged creatures on stage circle each other. io can’t make out exactly  _ what _ they are, but the animal on the right is a striking red and its feathers stand up like an earth cat’s fur. The other creature looks significantly more mangled and terrified, its lean grassy limbs visibly quiver even from io’s distant perspective. The crowd roars when it’s the green one to strike first and io takes that opportunity to move.

It’s the same song and dance, bumping violently into people and bracing when she inevitably gets stepped on by aliens twice her size. None of these characters look like the crude drawings Bido showed her. Too short, too blue, too many eyes, not enough arms. The creatures in the cage howl. She makes the mistake of looking and immediately feels sick; the green one has been eviscerated and half the crowd only cheers.

She covers her mouth and nose, tearing her gaze away to scan the crowd again. No matches. A tall alien collects credits from the audience as others in the ring corral the winning creature into a smaller cage and prepare for the next fight. io swallows dryly and heads for the one holding credits.

“Excuse me.” She raises a hand.

“Eh?” 

He eyes her up.

“How much?”

“What?” She nearly expresses offense before remembering her surroundings. “Oh, I mean, this is nice and all,” she forces the smile, “I was just looking for something  _ more _ , you know? More exciting.”

“After a match like that?” The alien gargles, then shrugs. “Mmm I guess yer right, though, that was done real quick. Hrm.” He shoves the collection of credits into a pocket, then leans forward so close she can smell the seawater on his breath. He looks like the aliens she spoke civilly with outside the building. “If you want  _ real _ excitement then go straight on back and on the right past the tape. That room isn’t under construction.” She hears a snarl when he leans away, and he might’ve said more but eager customers around them cut the conversation short. io backs away and again she’s on the run.

Just as he said, the room behind the cautionary tape only looks to be out of service. Her suit scan reveals another door and the further she goes into this horrible maze the more she worries she won’t be able to find her way back out. The crowd behind her cheers again when they announce the next set of creatures but another sound seizes her attention. Whimpering.

She detours and discovers a cracked door. Inside, more caged creatures. Not just a couple, but dozens stacked on top of each other like boxes in a freighter. io pales and nearly leaves, only to stop in place. Even if she doesn’t know what the hell the animals are, she knows what crying sounds like. Whoever this “Boss” guy is has caused a lot of people (and critters) a lot of grief, she reasons.

Might as well return the favor.

“Shoot what was that thing’s name…” she mumbles. “Spicy sword.”

_ Compact ionized thermal plasma saber deployed. _

_ Why did that work?  _ She lunges into a run again, breaking whatever locks she can reach at the far end first. The last thing she needs is to be trapped in a room with alien creatures that she can’t know have last been fed.

She stops at a cage with sizzling yellow wire, and a plate that reads “Quicksilver.” The animal inside has strikingly on-the-nose lean silver features, like liquid mercury, and its frame like the unholy union of a bullet train and a noodle. No mouth or eyes that she can see, but the weird dog seems to look directly at her. Her sword fizzles through the sparkling lock with more resistance than flesh, but it still gets the job done.  _ Viva la revolución _ . 

“HEY!” A burly alien at the door shouts as she pops off another broken lock. io freezes again then notices the recorder above the door.  _ Shit _ . Monsters heave and growl behind her. “You can’t be in here!”

_ Recommended: engage jet propulsion. _

“Ah- yes?!” Quicker than before, her suit reengages. Synthetic tiles layer over her skin like chameleon camouflage, her helmet the last to take shape. Thick panels at her ankles rev before “launch.” Her feet lift from the ground faster than she anticipates and she flails in fear of losing her balance.

_ Stabilizing. _

The alien below watches with confusion before angrily drawing what her suit tells her is a common issue law enforcement laser rifle. He aims at her, and she braces when shots whiz by her helmet. With only one visible exit, the creatures she freed hurl themselves up the concrete walkway towards him. Running isn’t an option by the time he sizes up the threat and several of the wretched monsters sink their teeth into his arms and legs. His garbled shouting garners more attention, and she’s sure that the security footage has too, but those who come in have to prioritize the creatures rather than the person who liberated them.

She whisks back and forth in an attempt to move before getting the hang of hovering physics. By now, creatures have swarmed the stands, so she freely glides to the door and sticks a sloppy landing that breaks immediately into a run. Complete chaos. Rooms blur together as she passes aliens and monsters running in every direction.

Finally, she finds the secret door she was supposed to have gone into the first time around. A high frequency pierces her concentration, and her sword dissipates so she can hold the helmet where her ears are. Forget the  _ why _ , the auditory assault drives her to keel over until it ends with ragged breathing and distant echoing screams. She shouts back at the suit to disconnect and radio silence follows. After recomposing she turns the handle. Dread. The door doesn’t budge.

“What?!” io slams her shoulder into it, and once again when it still doesn’t move. “Come on!!”

A trill behind her introduces more panic, and she looks back to see the silvery creature from before. Liquid mercury dog. She puts her hands up when its wirey pointed legs step forward. She moves back when it gets close, hoping to avoid conflict. Her fingers twitch to manifest spicy sword again, but then the creature bumps its head into the door as she had.

“Are you...copying me?”

She finds renewed vigor. This weird dog fills her with determination! It pushes against the door and she activates the jets at her ankles again from a couple feet away. The door bursts as soon as her shoulder collides with it, and jagged pieces of wood fall to the floor with her and her expletives. There will be bruises in several locations tomorrow, she imagines. She groans and rubs her radiating shoulder.

“Who in the hell?!” She plants her hands on the floor and lifts her head to see a short stocky blob in a...cowboy hat? And there’s  _ another  _ cage ring. This time there aren’t creatures inside, but  _ people _ . One is a red beast of a person, and the other entirely dressed in black, and shorter. Tied up, maybe. Oh, definitely tied to a chair. Light returns to her eyes. Bido’s guy! “What part of the door bein’ locked don’t you get? Bettin’s off for the night. Who the hell are you?!”

She trembles but gets back onto her feet, glad that the suit helmet conceals her face. Otherwise cowboy might see how terribly not confident she is. She plants her fists on her hips.

“io, sole survivor of planet Earth and intergalactic errand runner turned part-time bounty hunter!” 

“What?” The green goo snorts and turns to a goon by his side. “Who’s this clown?”

“I’m here for  _ him _ !” io shouts, pointing towards the ring. The manticore man points to himself in confusion. io grimaces and swats her hand in the air. “No no,  _ the other guy. _ ”

“Me?” The man in the chair perks up, craning his neck to get a better look at his supposed savior. “Are you serious? Did...Bido send you?”

“Keep talking and I’ll have Velos break another finger!” The green goo hisses, looking to the man next to him for a moment before turning his attention back to io with a puzzled frown. “So...what? Are you a cop? Or Interspace Corps?”

“Er-” her wary arms lower before resuming their faux confidence, “no!”

“Alright then,  _ io _ ...the name is Argus, creditor and proprietor of the fine establishment.” The man tips the brim of his oversized hat, his words thick with an exaggerated southern accent from Earth. Oddly specific, but at least the translation is clear. “Seeing as you've broken my door, barged into a private affair and you’re  _ not _ a cop, I’m gonna have to ask you to kindly get the FUCK out of my club. Please.”

“I…” her helmet UI locks onto five individuals in direct line of sight, and then the silver dog runs around her legs engaging one of them. She raises her voice over alien shouting. “I can’t do that, sir! I’m here for the guy in the chair!”

“Oh Nebula, she let the damn animals out too.” Argus pinches the bridge of his nose, seething with rage. “Who let you in?! It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t even matter. You two, get those little moneymakers back into their cages! I don’t care if they have a couple less legs when you do it, just put them back!”

“Yes sir!” The two men brandish their laser rifles and dutifully trot past io, unaware of the chaos she had left in her wake.

“Velos!” The western man calls to the red manticore, who grunts in acknowledgement. “I’ll pay ya double if you clean this shit up and grab me a bottle of Fetid Clover from upstairs. I’ll be in my office.”

Argus slams an ornate rainbow wood door behind him as a sharp-toothed grin spreads across Velos’ cheeks. io didn’t look like much when he first saw her, so he opts to finish what he started.

He reaches out and squeezes the man’s head so tightly that he and the chair are lifted off the ground with ease, his legs kicking pitifully underneath him. 

“I don’t mean to rush you, but maybe stop posing for a couple seconds?!” He shouts as he wriggles and writhes against his restraints, the pressure enough to make him feel like he could pop at any moment. “This rescue  **sucks** .”

_ This is Bido’s engineer?  _ io squeaks and flicks out her plasma cutter. A cursory look at the cage reveals an opening on the other side, but io doesn’t have enough time for that! Her sword sparks and clashes against the metal, damaging it but not enough to pry it back. Suit UI begins to calculate alternatives but io ignores them. The  _ top _ of the cage is open.

“Give me some air!” She shouts. 

_ Air quality: moderate. Respiratory aid not required at this time. _

“ _ A boost _ ,” she corrects herself, and yelps when the jets kick on and launch her over the fencing. “ _ Shit!! _ ”

Flying higher than before but not quite to the ceiling, she lands on top of the manticore like a meteorite discovering gravity. She falls hard, he falls harder, and Bido’s engineer crashes down so violently that his chair shatters. She scrambles while her victim groans, blubbering apologies while she attempts to cut restraints off the engineer’s wrists without nicking him. 

“Okay so you  _ are _ Bido’s guy. What a  _ freaking _ relief.” He can’t see her elated smile but that doesn’t stop her. She bites her tongue when her sword sparks against suit armor that looks similar to hers. “ _ Holy shit _ . I think I killed a couple of guys outside looking for you, I think somebody should check on them- you  _ are _ Bido’s engineer, right? Please tell me you’re Bido’s engineer.”

“Please stop calling me that, he doesn’t  _ own _ me. I work for the guy. Just call me Rinzler, and-“ The battered man is quick to slip from his bonds once he has the opportunity, scooting to put his back against the metal cage. “Shit, watch out!”

Velos is on his feet before Rinzler can properly articulate his warning. He snatches io off the ground by her ankle and whips her to the other end of the cage like a rag doll. 

“Hurrrgh.” The manticore grunts unintelligibly, rolling his shoulders as he waits for io to stand up and fight again. Having proven that she has more fight in her than he thought, his grim grin is now aimed squarely at her. He wouldn’t let her get the drop on him again.

io groans on hands and knees for the second time in five minutes. It hurts, but maybe not as much as it would've without the suit. No broken bones, her UI reminds her. Back up on her feet she goes.

“Spicy sword!” She readies the glowing blade in both hands. The only thing standing between her and getting off this damn planet is big, red and ugly; and io barrels forward, yelling and swinging with all the savagery of a cave woman to do it. Velos doesn’t look the slightest bit perturbed by the act, his grin only widening. He seizes her downswing and flings her again. io hurls through the air, wailing like a speeding ambulance until the second collision.

Her opponent laughs, hearty and oh so infuriatingly. She grunts louder in frustration and sprints forward, following her suit’s trajectory suggestion this time. She drops into a slide at the cue, dragging her sword along the ground before slashing upwards and managing to burn just a thick tuft of hair from Velos’ mane.  _ Not enough _ .

Her eyes widen and he grabs her once more, this time spun around and released like a higher stakes hammer throw. She doesn’t get up from this landing, at least not right away.  _ This isn’t working _ .

“Hey.”

io looks up towards the relatively calm voice considering all that’s going on around her. In reality, this engineer of Bido’s honestly isn’t that far off from his crude caricature, down to the scuffed black helmet. Rinzler, he calls himself. Sounds like a bad movie character.

“Does that fancy suit have, like, y’know, a gun?”

She raises her hands.

“Why aren’t you  _ helping me _ ?”

“What, during  _ my _ rescue?”

She only wishes he could see the look of absolute disbelief on her face, but a charging Velos prevents her from forming a proper comeback. 

“Shit, um, gun!”

She scrambles and the sword merges back with the rest of her suit. Her platform shoes bounce along the padded ring floor. Speed seems to be her only physical advantage against the lumbering manticore. No wonder they tied Rinzler up.

_ Ranged combat detected. Recommended weapon: short plasma pistol. _

“Yes!” She screams. She dodges a swing while liquid matter fabricates a weapon in her palm. Velos roars and io runs a little faster.

_ First engagement detected. Initiating plasma pistol tutorial. _

“I don’t need a tutorial right now!” Velos swings and narrowly misses her.

_ Two switches on the right side will regulate intensity… _

“Oh hey, you got one! Now...shoot him, maybe?”

io has half a mind to turn it on this asshole of an engineer she wishes she didn’t need so badly.

“Listen,  _ Rinzler- _ ” she yelps when Velos grabs her by the helmet and her feet lift off the ground. That laugh again, comically deep and villainous. She can practically see the flames licking his teeth from the back of his throat this close. An alarm assaults her ears from inside of the helmet and she kicks wildly. Pressure and heat warnings fire off and layer over each other. She panic-aims before pulling the trigger. 

The next thing she knows, she’s been dropped.

She gasps for air and looks up at Velos, still standing there before her but now with a mangled cavity where there should be a chest. Rinzler whistles. Not five seconds later does the manticore stumble and topple backwards, and io can't hold back the incoming bile. 

She retches into her helmet.

“Oh my  _ god-  _ it’s in my helmet, augh it’s EVERYWHERE!” She cries on her hands and knees.

“I mean, good thing he’s dead or that might be a real problem, yeah.”

She coughs, “For the love of  _ god _ .”

_ Waste detected, now initiating drainage and self-cleaning procedure. _

“I…wow, this is one hell of a rescue.” Rinzler murmurs, using the chain link fence to climb to his feet. He briefly examines the sides of his face, lingering on a few unsightly dents before letting out a disappointed hiss. “Look I don’t wanna be rude or anything because I appreciate the assist, but you may wanna reconsider your job choices. Bounty hunting isn’t your strong suit.”

Her suit whirs and wipes away the last of the filth as she stands. It’s all around her feet and she asks no questions. The more pressing issue stands there at the end of the cage.

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have to be,” she mutters, feeling just a bit stupid when she instinctively raises her arm to wipe her mouth and it bumps right into the helmet. “But for reasons I will not be elaborating on, I was the only person who could spend hours to find an engineer to fix our stupid ship and help us get off this planet so that I can find whoever the HELL blew  _ my _ planet up.” Her exasperated shoulders drop. “So maybe, just  _ maybe _ , you can find it in your heart to help me out now that I've saved your life?”

“Someone actually blew up Earth? Ah...talk about a tough break.” Rinzler pensively folds his arms across his chest, a few details suddenly clicking into place for him, and out of place for her. He talks about Earth like he knew it. “Okay, okay. Let’s go have a little chat with Argus, then we’ll see about getting your ship into open space.”

He beckons for io to follow him, making sure to step around the body - and the pool of manticore blood - on his way out of the cage. She pauses before following. Of all the things he mentioned, Bido didn’t tell her his engineer is  _ human _ ! Questions twinkle in her mind amidst a new moon. She maneuvers around the puddle and gags.

“So how’s this gonna work? Is this a ‘good cop, bad cop’ type of deal?” He asks over his shoulder, approaching the private office. “Or are you gonna go in and put a hole in that big hat of his?”

“Well now that I have what I really came here for, I’m going to ask him some questions, hopefully get some answers, and then we’re going to leave.” She states catching up. Her gun deactivates and she taps his shoulder. “Hold on, before we go in. You sound really detached, did you leave Earth too? I didn’t think people were stationed offworld before what happened. Ares made it sound like this suit and colony sustainability were really experimental concepts…”

“Uh...I’ve been offworld for a while now, actually. Got sent out to do some scouting in areas of space that hadn’t been industrialized. It was pretty advanced for its time, but...clearly things have come a lot further than I remember.” Rinzler offers her a nonchalant shrug to sate her curiosity. The ‘how’ of his life hardly seems important anymore, and it shows. “Honestly they sorta just turned a bunch of us loose, and I decided I was gonna find my purpose somewhere else. Wish there was less puke involved with that, but tonight’s a special case I guess. You gonna kick the door in now, or…?”

Behind her visor a corner of her lips turns upward. And considering all that she’s learned so far, it doesn’t surprise her in the least that humans being reliably and safely in outer space is another well-kept secret.

“I’m  _ so sorry  _ I interrupted your ass-beating earlier,” she digs, in a significantly better mood now that she doesn’t feel so alone, “Next time I'll make sure to  _ knock _ .” She sweeps up a leg and blasts the door with a single jet, propulsion pushing her back into Rinzler. His armor “cushions” her fall and she quickly straightens back out. “Whoops.”

“Watch your step, space cadet.” Rinzler chuckles, slipping past io to survey Argus’ private room. The door is barely hanging on the hinges, the trembling blob man peeking over the top of his polished steel desk.

“I’m begging you, just leave me alone! Haven’t you done enough damage already?!” Argus chucks his hat at the approaching engineer and it harmlessly tumbles to the floor after colliding with his slick black armor. 

“The lady’s got some questions,” Rinzler vaults over the desk and drags the cowering entrepreneur up by his collar, having him face io as she enters the office. io, who watches in awe at the engineer’s sudden shift in attitude. So, bad cop. “And I’m here to make sure you’re open to answering all of them. Comfortable?”

“Of course not!”

“Perfect!”

io scoots in around the broken door. 

“What’d you do with the other mechanics? I’m told this is the last place they were seen. Where are they?”

“Other mechanics? What other mechanics?”

Rinzler jostles the alien around for a second as a warning. There’s no need for him to speak; it’s io’s time to shine.

“Ah! Dammit, don’t  _ do _ that!” Argus squeezes his eyes shut, the violent shaking making a stress headache that much worse. “Look, the other mechanics wouldn’t pay what they owed so we broke a few fingers and toes to incentivize them. We turned them loose though, I swear! You can’t collect on a dead man’s debt!”

Rinzler hesitates, looking to io for the subtle suggestion on how to proceed. The line of logic is concerningly sound. He’s a smart businessman, he can't deny that.

“Uh,” io stammers. Interrogation is so far out of an accountant’s realm, and the bullet holes in the back of Argus’ office only reinforce that idea. “You just let them go? That doesn’t make sense. You’re not keeping them in cages somewhere?”

“What? No. No! Of course not! I run a mostly respectable club! I’m not one of those low-lifes that sells people!” Argus barks indignantly, arms folded across his chest. “I mean, I know someone that does but  _ I  _ would never! If they die, I lose money!”

“I don’t think he’s bluffing, io.” Rinzler’s grip loosens enough for the green man to slip out of his captor’s grasp, but he’s smart enough to stay put. “The question is...what happened to them?”

“The outpost is huge! They could be anywhere, as far as I’m concerned! Also,” Argus angrily fixes his suit, pupil-less eyes darting between his two assailants, “tracking them would be too much of a money sink. You’d have better luck with the bouncers outside. They talked about scaring off a green woman with a lisp who was trying to...er, ‘entice’ patrons of my bar as they shuffled off. Maybe they’re all off having a good time without you two.”

io grimaces; she ruined any shot she had at finding the truth long before she thought to ask. She keeps those little details to herself. Another monster rears its head in her silence.

“But that doesn’t make any  _ sense _ ,” she persists, a bold step forward. She can see the brow raise in Rinzler’s entire body. “They’re just  _ gone _ ? Bido said he hasn’t seen his guys in weeks, and your club just happens to be the last place they were  _ all  _ seen at! And now you’re going to tell me that’s just a coincidence? They’re  _ dead _ , aren’t they?!” Her reflection is unrecognizable in Rinzler’s visor, her suit is splattered with manticore blood and she scares even herself back down. She’s suddenly acutely aware of the outburst.  _ He isn’t Ares _ . 

That’s all she really needed. The journey had caught up with her. She finds herself in thoughtful silence again when Rinzler pulls her along and they exit the club, and he sighs at the two-mooned sky and how grateful he is to be under it again. The bodies are still there, mostly untouched except for the clear trampling from animal outbreak evacuation. It’s a little easier to look at them now. Then again, her stomach is already empty. 

“Well,” she mumbles, “something tells me we won’t be getting any more leads with these guys.”

“Probably not, but I’m alive so that’s a win in my book. Hang on a sec, eh?” Rinzler crouches down to examine the two trampled bodies, digging through their pockets. io watches him for a moment. Curiously she activates her communications system again in the hopes that she can get in touch with Chico. She braces for the ear piercing screech from earlier but it’s only silence while Rinzler rummages. He tosses a couple of food wrappers out onto the ground before standing back up with his prize - a carbon fiber key with wired veins. “I heard him talking about his ‘sweet ride’ (sweet ride) last night (night). Since he’s indisposed (indisposed) at the moment, maybe we can take it back to Bido’s. (back to Bido’s)”

“Hold on,” she switches communications back off in defeat, “I was hearing a weird echo, I don’t think Chico’s frequency works…”

“Built-in communications? Fancy. I was saying we take the dead guy’s bike and get out of here.”

“Really?” She squints. Murder in self-defense is fine but she draws the line at stealing from corpses! She shifts her weight to one leg, still shaking off her unease. “Gross but yea, okay.”

She follows his lead to the garage, a decrepit structure lit only by moons and distant neon streetlights. She turns her weary gaze up and finds the view is actually quite breathtaking. It’s still nighttime. She deactivates her helmet and cool night air touches every inch of skin and sweat-matted lock of hair. Hard to believe she had been soaring through all of that a week ago.

Rinzler heaves the aluminum garage door and only then does she realize how tall he is. It strikes her as odd that he appears perfectly capable now of handling people and physical obstacles, when he’d seemed so helpless tied up in the club. She notices his clothing is on the outside of his armor, but she hardly feels entitled to question the guy’s sense of fashion with vomit and blood smeared all over her suit. What looks like a parked motorbike beeps and they stop before it.

“You know how to drive that?” She asks, her tone saying  _ because I sure don’t _ . 

“I don’t, but…” He trails into silence, staring intently at a serial number. The faceplate of his helmet faintly pulses red before it fades into green, then returns to its original matte black. He inserts the key and the machine comes to life with a low hum. It grows louder as he straddles the seat and revs the engine. Green lights pulse up along its geometry and illuminate the wheels. “I do now. Limited Starchaser 2000 Hovercycle. So what’s up with your ship exactly? You don’t have an engineer, or even an A.I auto-diag system?”

_ Quirky _ . She climbs onto the back of the bike and gingerly wraps arms around his waist. Not too cozy now; she’s always been shy about human contact.

“I don’t actually know.” She tucks her feet underneath herself, rests them on convenient back pedals. “I’ve talked to the guy who I assume runs the thing for ten minutes tops. I… I crash landed here from earth and he let me stay on the ship for free, and I figured that was my best shot at not getting snatched or killed or, god I don’t know. All I know is that nothing works, and we don’t have an engineer. We just need to get off the planet and then we can find somebody more permanent. You’re obviously really needed here.”

“Permanent, huh? Hmm…”

She quickly forgets her bashfulness when he takes off faster than expected. 


	3. III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> io and the new engineer make their way back to her ship, and learn something troubling...

They reach Otto’s in no time flat. The hovercycle purrs while they zip along quiet streets and io manages to admire the console over Rinzler’s shoulder. Calculated flicks of his wrists switch the gears. When space crafts work, they work  _ well _ . The sounds are music to her ears and she’s almost disappointed when they park.

“Bido!” She pushes the rackety door open and holds it for Rinzler, who has to stoop to get in. Tools hang unused off the scrap metal walls as they had when she first walked in. The air is still and io oscillates like a turret. “Hello?”

“Oh hey-” A frumpy man sits up from a recliner behind the desk in plain sight. His lighter clinks onto the floor when he jumps to his feet. Rinzler snorts.

“You’re not Bido.”

“Ayy! Human! You’re alive!” He slaps her shoulder, a cigarette still hanging out of his mouth. “Very astute, eh, Bido’s my brother. I’m Budo! I gave ya directions back at the Outpost. We’re takin’ turns manning the counter but I’m sure he won’t mind the early wakeup call for this. Rinzler! Buddy!” He pulls the engineer in for a hug before he can get a word in. “We thought you’s was dead like the rest of ‘em! Ha ha!”

Rinzler forces out an unenthused chuckle as Budo gleefully squeezes him, releasing him from the uninvited embrace after a few uncomfortable seconds.

“Oh hey, Budo. Wasn’t expecting to see you.” He pats him on the shoulder before slipping past the stocky man to search for his twin. “Bido! Bido you cranky ol’ bastard, wake up!”

“Rinzler?” Bido’s chubby cheeks make it around the corner before Rinzler does, and when he finally lays eyes on his missing mechanic, he’s beaming with delight. “I’ll be damned, back in one piece and all! Good to have you back, ya asshole. Got worried we’d hafta close up the shop for a bit. I know ya been...kidnapped and all, but you ready ta get back ta work?”

“Actually,” The engineer leans over the counter, drawing Bido in for a quiet conversation. He occasionally glances over his shoulder at io, but their conversation remains hard to hear even in the empty shop. io turns to Budo, whose nose wrinkles.

“No offense, kid,” he grunts and gestures towards Rinzler, “but I know he ain’t gonna tell ya. Friend ta friend, smells like ya been through a lot. I take it ya didn’t see the green guy?”

“Oh we did.” She grimaces down at her grimy suit. “He didn’t know where the other mechanics are though. I don’t think he was lying.”

“Ah damn, really?” Budo scratches the back of his unkempt fur. “Well that ain’t great news but I guess we can stop goin’ after the kid and focus on hiring new guys, eh?” He guffaws, then notices the wrinkle of guilt on her forehead. He fist-bumps her shoulder. “Don’t look so glum! Ya did us a solid.”

“I mean I think I did more damage than I needed to now. I let the caged animals out too. He seemed really defeated.”

“Oh you ruined the guy’s life for sure.” Budo nods matter-of-factly. Unsurprisingly, this doesn’t make her feel better. “Don’t misunderstand though, eh, that rat deserved everything ya did. But ya definitely did him in.”

He offers her a seat at their ripped leather couch by the door. Her tension melts into the worn cushion and she lets her head fall back. Deactivating the suit wouldn’t be an improvement at this point. Budo disappears to a back room saying something about getting a drink.

The upholstery reminds her of home. The sofa at her parents’, and falling asleep while the giant box TV was still on. Well-loved, smelling like dust and years of use. Exhaustion threatens her again in the still moment, and she realizes she has to do something before it takes her. Back to suit communications.

“Chico? Can you hear me?” io pauses to radio silence. She repeats herself and a crunchy message filters through.

_ “io? io are you getting this??” _

“Yes!”

_ “Oh thank the high winds; I’ve been trying to reach you for the last hour! Where are you? Did you get lost?”  _ He barrels straight into too many questions while she waits for his breath to run out, which takes longer than she expects. She rubs her face and keeps her voice low.

“I’m good, I found a mechanic.”

_ “You did! Oh, oh wow! I’m so glad! Hey so, maybe you can come back now? I don’t mean to rush you or anything, but something’s come up, y’know? Not a big deal, but kind of? I’m just saying there’s some stuff that we really really need to talk about! But y’know, when you’re ready! I just hope that’s soon!” _

“I’m working on it, I really am-”

Rinzler and Bido look back to her as if she had just spoken in tongues. She opens her mouth to ask  _ what _ but then her stomach rumbles again--louder to make sure she hears this time. Her cheeks grow warm.

“We’ll be there, Chico, just hang tight.” And she silences communications with lips pressed. “Uh...sorry. Rinzler do you mind if we stop somewhere to eat before we head back? There’s nothing on the ship and I’m getting notifications from the suit that my blood sugar’s low. It probably thinks I’m dying.”

“...sound good?” Rinzler leans away from the counter, extending a hand to his boss.

Bido straightens up as well, grasping the engineer’s hand tightly. 

“Ya drive a hard bargain, but y’know what? Ya deserve it. Ya stuck your neck out fer me, I’ll stick mine out fer you.”

“That’s what I like to hear! I’ll get io’s ship taken care of and be back by morning.” Rinzler gives his boss an informal salute as he backs away from the counter, heading for the door. “C’mon, there’s a little plaza not far from here that should have something edible.”

Relief. She waves goodbye to the brothers with a tired smile before she follows Rinzler out the door. They take off and she presses the side of her forehead against his back this time, finally able to simply...watch. Night and the Outpost embrace each other like estranged lovers, darkness clinging to every corner, shadows filling the alleyways between every pipe and brick. Blinking advertisements for bars twinkle at each other like distant stars. Long neon rods act like streetlights and do most of the work in illuminating the main street. More and more people populate the sidewalks as they coast further in. Loud music vibrates from a bar they zip past, another nostalgic vision of people dancing on a dying planet. Subconsciously her hugging tightens and Rinzler doesn’t mention it.

And then they’re there in front of a meager plaza, its food stands connected by light bulbs hanging off twisted wire. She definitely hadn’t seen this place in her lone expedition, but maybe it was better that way; they walk towards the center of the plaza and nostalgia curdles in her stomach, leaving a bitter taste in her mouth. A small illuminated noodle bowl commands her gaze.

“Got a taste for anything?” Rinzler breaks her concentration, his hands in his pockets. She bites the inside of her cheek.

“Anything that won’t come back up.” She looks from sign to sign. “A vegetable, maybe.”

“Lucky for you, those  _ do  _ also exist out here in space.”

Her nose wrinkles. “Smartass.” But her pretend insult doesn’t last too long as she realizes she’d spent all the credits Chico gave her to get into the club. She thanks him and he casually shrugs,  _ don’t sweat it _ . She asks if he wants something too, but drops the subject when he says he isn't feeling it. Understandable after all that’s happened.

That doesn’t stop her from inhaling her food the second they sit down, though.

“Earlier you said a bunch of us were out here in space already…” she covers her mouth, still chewing, “Where are they? Is there a colony?”

“Colony…” He echoes, leaning back in his seat and staring at the starry night sky. “Yeah. It’s out there, but it’s not my home anymore. Had some  _ creative differences _ , and decided to be a vagabond instead. The holotapes made it sound nicer than it is, heh.”

Sitting across from each other carries a different vibe than escaping the club. Even though he sounds thoughtful, his reclined posture reads as something else to io. Something dismissive, maybe, confident. A wordless moment passes as she takes a few more bites, allowing Rinzler a chance to turn the conversation.

“What about you, ‘bounty hunter’? What was Earth like before it...y’know.” His focus shifts; with his head tilted down slightly, she commands his undivided attention, even with his vision obscured by his tinted visor. “It’s been so long since I’ve touched down.”

She notices a processed grit to his voice, wonders if it has always been there or if she’d misheard it. Odd fashion choices aside, there's something appealing about the helmet’s mystery.  _ You know damn well what it is _ . 

“I don’t know where to start answering that,” she says when she finally remembers words. Eventually she tells him about the two worlds she knew, the rural charm of her hometown and the technological marvel of her workplace. Under alien moons, she tells him about the golden splendor of autumn, the brilliant silver mornings after snowfall, the blue-green depths of her hometown’s lake. Dancing fireflies in warm summer evenings, the luxury of automated cars and streets, and almost every food she could ever want at the touch of a personal tablet. Describing the loss widens the hole in her heart; she had taken so much for granted. 

“And I wanted to be an engineer.” She admits, chin in her palm. Inevitably, reminiscing brings her to the people she misses, too. “But it’s a long story. It wasn’t in the cards for me, so I became an accountant. I’m here because uh,” she wishes for a pen or a paperclip, then, something that would break, “one of the engineers at the company I worked for put me in this suit and launched me off the planet. I call him Ares; it was like...a work thing.” She sits on her hands and like a train on emergency brakes she inches to an uncomfortable end in her story. “The name, not the launching. We weren’t on the same page about a lot of things.”

Without realizing it Rinzler transitions from having his legs up casually to leaning in with earnest, soaking in every detail like a sponge. The tales io weaves of Earth are a mournful eulogy for a lost home, gone from space but still nestled comfortably in her heart. Even if he hadn’t been there for years, her words create an extremely vivid picture.

“Bad coworker, huh? I’ve been there.” Rinzler murmurs distantly, experiencing a brief moment of reflection himself. “So what now? Gonna find a new place to settle in and call home? I’m sure there are a few solar systems that have similar stars.”

“No.” She stares down at her thighs. Ares’ tired eyes burn in her memory. “Not yet. He’s out here somewhere and might have my family with him. I need them to know I'm alive. I need to know what happened to our planet.” She pushes away her tray, eyes meeting her shaking reflection in his visor. In it she sees the failure of a friend, a daughter, a partner. “Ares knew. I know he did. He had this  _ look _ in his eyes, like he was apologizing for it already. Wouldn’t tell me anything, because by then we had no time.” 

Rinzler’s literal blank expression is hard to read, but she manages to project her insecurity onto it anyway. She swallows a lump in her throat and fidgets.

“Sorry, I just kinda dumped this on you.”

“Relax,” he interjects immediately. “I asked.”

“Right.” io takes a deep breath. It feels like the longest she’s talked to someone in ages. “So I have to find him, and whatever’s left of Isotech. Who’s to say it won’t happen to other worlds?”

“Huh.” An indecipherable look. She laces her fingers together in an attempt to make her hands behave. “So he shot you off the planet, not knowing if you’d even live, with zero instructions about where to go, and now you have to pick up the pieces and find him.”

She nods.

“Sounds a bit familiar, doesn’t it?”

io returns a confused look, “Not...really?”

_ Bzzzt. Bzzzt. Alert: Priority call initiated. _

_ “Good news, io!” _ Chico squawks suddenly, now a shrill and uninvited voice in her ear.  _ “I learned how to send out an emergency signal on this thing! Aaaand I’ve hooked it up to the ship now, so the signal’s clearer! Look, normally I’d hate to be a bother like this but you  _ really _ need to come back to the ship. I’m not telling you what to do because I can’t or anything, but you really should be here.” _

“It’s Chico.” She holds a couple of fingers to her ear but speaks to Rinzler, who takes the cue.

_ “What?” _

“We’re on our way, Chico, don’t worry.” She wishes she could pull the phone away from her ear, so to speak, because he rambles more about how urgently they need to be there. Rinzler snickers when she drags a hand down her face. “We’re on the bike now I really gotta go.”

_ “He has a bike?!”  _ He gasps in her ear before she force-shuts communications down.  _ Something like that _ . 

“Probably shouldn’t stall any longer.” She joins Rinzler, who sits in wait on the idle hovercycle.

“I dunno, I could stand around a little longer. We could talk about your childhood.” He digs. 

She climbs onto the back, embarrassed but catching onto his game. “If I talk any more I might start owing you money.”

His laughter resonates with her, a human experience that appeals to the part of her that had once found flesh and blood people interesting. It dies out as the hovercycle accelerates, but her smile doesn’t. Thinking about Ares makes her blood boil in every other instance. Back on the main street her anger doesn't follow, but a sense of appreciation does. The ride back is quick, io holding a fluttering map, pointing out turns, and Rinzler giving her a hard time about “terrible navigation UI.”

The ship bay comes into sight like a lighthouse in the fog. 

From afar and compared to others in the bay, their ship looks noticeably shrimpy. It sits in the shadows of the larger glossy ones, like those io daydreamed about as a young girl. Chipped green paint calls to glory days of when it might have looked like a functioning vehicle. Rust climbs the side panels and around windows, some of which are missing nails. One of its legs threatens to fall off if she stares too hard at it. “ _ That’s your ship?” Uh huh.  _ They climb up the stairs, io first.

“Hey Chico-” they turn into the bridge and io stops abruptly. The kind of split reaction to seeing a shadowy figure out of the corner of her eye when home alone. Not only is Chico waiting for her, but another taller woman she’s never seen before looms by the opposite doorway, wearing oil-stained overalls far too big for her, eyeing io like wounded prey she wants to finish off. Her skin is a sickly grayish lavender, limbs wiry and ghoulish. Her mouth like a spider’s. Everything about the stranger makes io want to run, but Rinzler stands behind her as if to say  _ oh you’re not going anywhere _ .

“io! You made it! Look, everybody’s here! Have you met Iris yet?” Chico clasps his hands together while io breaks into a primal cold sweat.  _ No, and I think I would really not like to _ . “And you brought a mechanic!”

“Call me Rinzler.”

“It’s really nice to meet you! I’m Chico, and that’s Iris!” He gestures at the purple demon.

“We’ve met.” She hisses, gaze flicking to the blank faceplate and back to io.

“Can’t recall when but I'll take your word for it.” 

“How’d you guys meet…?”  _ What the hell is she? _ io raises a tentative hand. “I’m io.”

“Irissss.”

“Uh, we met, uh, hm.” Chico looks troubled, but then nods enthusiastically. Too enthusiastically. “Yea! Anyway, I wanted you guys to see this broadcast, especially you, io.”

Chico picks up a remote from the center console, and at the push of a button a cracked monitor slides down from the ceiling with a paused newscast waiting for them. A second button dims the lights, and a third resumes the broadcast.

“...death on an absolutely unprecedented scale. If you’re just now tuning in, we’ve confirmed the unprovoked annihilation of Nova Levia in the Lisket sector. Countless lives, snatched away in an instant. A group claiming to be the last surviving members of a lost planet in the Orion Spur have claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack, but an investigation has yet to determine the veracity of that statement. A few minutes ago, UNC obtained a video message from these so-called ‘Survivors of Earth’ which we will play in full.”

The feed jumps to a sparsely decorated office. A well-groomed man sits at a desk with his fingers laced, slick brown hair swept to the side. Who io assumes are his generals stand behind him in a uniform line, stoic men and women in clean, matching space suits. Idle and just off center is a man in a suit  _ and  _ helmet. io stares unblinkingly at him.

“Hello, and good day to you all! My name is Conrad Price. I am the president and CEO of Isotech Industries, and - due to unfortunate circumstances - the current leader of the last remaining survivors of Earth.” 

Conrad holds his hand up to show a holographic model of Earth, resting firmly in his palm. His smile is unfaltering and hollow, a thoroughly practiced expression. 

Iris, having viewed the broadcast once before with Chico, begins to slink out of the room. The movement tears io’s gaze away from the screen and in that short moment she sees them: savage, bloody claw marks down the back of her ill-fitting overalls.

Before she rounds the corner Iris looks back, and makes uncomfortable eye contact with io. Her tongue flicks out from between her lips, then she disappears from sight.

“It was a sad day, leaving our world behind. But we here at Isotech have learned to thrive in the face of adversity, and innovate under the most stressful of conditions. That innovation brings with it the passion to see a world full of comfort through technological growth. Nothing makes us happier than seeing smiles on human faces and an Isotech sign on every lawn. However…”

He snaps his fingers and the Earth model disappears, the camera slowly zooming in on his face. The smile falls as the camera stops zooming in, following from one cue to another.

“Innovation, as all leaps forward do, requires sacrifice. And as such, we thought that it was necessary to show you all what that sacrifice looks like. Truly a shame, but the resources we’ve gathered from this fallen planet will allow us to establish a world that aligns with our vision: Peaceful, luxurious and guided by the visionaries within our ranks. The planet we will claim will be a scientific utopia, a shining beacon for the universe ready to provide the best possible lives for all of humanity...and perhaps others, at the right price. Thank you for your time, and we look forward to bargaining with you soon.”

The broadcast abruptly ends as Chico pauses the video, frozen on the president’s face before the lights brighten and the screen slowly slides back into the ceiling.

“So uh…” Chico sets the remote down with a sigh, staring at the ground and shoving his feathered hands into his pockets. “I...I know you don’t want to destroy any planets but...do you know them?”

“Yes.” io answers without hesitation, fists at her sides.

“You do? That's great! Maybe you call them up and, y’know...tell them to stop?” He's met with an absurd look, an  _ are you serious? _ Rinzler shakes his head, as if knowingly.

“I used to work for them. Unfortunately they didn’t leave me bread crumbs, so I know just about as much as you do right now.” She exhales forcefully from her nostrils. “I don’t know what to say. I can’t believe it happened again just after a  _ week _ .”

“They work fast. Mind me running diagnostics on that screen in the meantime?” Rinzler squeezes past io while her mind reels. Chico sets him up at the main console and their chatter falls into the background. That was  _ Ares _ in the broadcast, posture straight but hands folded in front of himself like when he’d wait with her in the elevator. Like when he had something to say but managed to keep her in the dark. Anxiety builds in her chest, clearly remembering the panic in her coworkers’ eyes when they watched that dreadful broadcast at the office. Isotech and their betrayal.

“How long will the repairs take?” She asks, pulling herself out of the stupor. Rinzler taps his fingers on the console in brief thought.

“If I don’t sleep and nothing major needs replacing, I can get it done in three days.”

“Three days? That’s way faster than me studying the owner’s manual!” Chico beams, throwing his arms around Rinzler first before extending the overwhelming gratitude to io. “This is gonna go great, I promise! You helped us, so I’m gonna make sure we find those other humans for you! I’ll show you how helpful I can be!”

Before long he’s dancing through the bridge, eager chirps and cheeps singing praises for his crew and their mission. He oozes cheer and delight, drawing a hearty chuckle from Rinzler as the bird disappears further into the bowels of the ship.

“Hey. Serious question for you.” He fishes out a data chip from his breast pocket and slips it into the console to initiate a download of the required repairs. “Maybe I’m thinking too far ahead, but what are you gonna do if you find them? Think you and your fancy suit can take ‘em out?”

She hadn’t given it much thought, honestly, and she fears he can see that all over her face. All her life she’d let other people make all the decisions for her. She’d been on the sidelines for so long she freezes on the field. Pretended to be what everybody else wanted at her own cost.  _ What  _ can  _ I do? _

“It won’t come to that.” She says finally. “One of those guys in the broadcast was Ares. And I’ll do everything I can to not let it come to that.”

She looks at her hands, bold reminders that she’s no longer bound to their rules. Not Isotech’s, not her parents’, not even humanity’s.

“But if it does…” she says with a sheepish waiver in her voice, “then I hope future io is smarter than me and has a better plan.”


	4. IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a successful mission, io helps her crew take off.

As it turned out, space wasn’t at all different from life on Earth. The days started off similarly enough, at least. Wake up, brush teeth, scrounge for food, and get to work. This same io found herself switching more predictable human roommates for alien ones, living in the room of a building (spaceship) she didn’t own, yet somehow belonging less here than with home’s smoke and mirrors. Similarities ended where work began. She had _drive_ now, even if it just meant finding what was left of Earth. What was left of humanity.

In the past two days, she stumbled through a crash course in spacecraft engineering, which eclipsed any of the learning she had cobbled together from enthusiast magazines on Earth. And as excited as she had been on Earth about AI and machinery, that passion struggled to help her retain much beyond basics. Turns out...maybe that’s what university was for. Not that her parents had supported an Engineering degree; Accounting was what they agreed to. At the end of her ‘internship’ she could safely say that she knew her way around the ship’s simpler wiring system, but its crew? An even bigger obstacle.

As she tosses off the blanket to start another day, she can’t help but feel a slight sense of dread at the next possible barrage of questions from Chico. It's clear that he means well and has a genuine interest in her feelings, but she can’t bring herself to answer them all. Not yet. He seems more like an extroverted landlord than a real friend. She at least appreciates him trying.

Swiping a touch pad on the wall brings a shower stall up from the floor, and its matching shower head down from the ceiling. She recalls seeing oval shower pods like these on Earth, though only in retro catalogs, and how almost wishfully she imagined they must be portals to the moon by their porcelain curvature and inorganic symmetry. But in her daydreams the moon never had talking gas cloud people and grinning purple fungi. Despite the steaming water rolling off her shoulders, chills return at the mere thought of Iris’s bloodied overalls. That’s one way to make an impression, she guesses. Chico may vouch for her, but to io that says more about his judgement than Iris’s character. io knew a man-eating alien when she saw one.

So that only left Rinzler.

Another stranded human, but a little handier with an electrical system and apparently equipped with some impressive emotional control in the face of _hey so our planet’s dead_. Unlike her unprepared departure, he voluntarily left his colony and she still doesn't know why. He told her, yes, but she knows there’s something more behind the tinted visor and helmet-synthesized voice. His story took moving alone to another country to an unprecedented intensity; she found moving to another state to work in the city scary enough. As aloof as Rinzler is, or pretends to be, she quietly acknowledges that she actually doesn’t much like the idea of him leaving after they finish repairs.

 _So what else do you do, just fix stuff?_ His chuckle on the first day after she committed each piece of his standard ship repair toolkit to memory.

 _I'll have you know when I'm not ‘just fixing stuff’ for money, my super sophisticated hobbies include relatable things like listening to music._ And as comically generic as the answer was, she took the bait and they talked about synth for an hour until they realized they hadn't started on the ship yet. 

She drops her toothbrush into the sink and scrambles.

_Heightened pulse detected._

“Thanks.” Her sliding door whizzes open as she mutters to her space suit. The familiar sound of a news broadcast in the kitchen draws her in. Chico sits by himself, just as he has before, but this time watching the news and munching through a bag of chips.

“io!”

“Hey. Do you...sleep in here?”

He returns a quizzical look and finishes chewing before wiping off his small raptor beak. 

“In the kitchen? No, oh no! I sleep in the living room. I don’t really like to, you know, rest my head where I eat, not that there was anything wrong with nesters or anything, I-I just don’t see a family of five living comfortably in a pile of sticks because a priest said it’s ‘natural’-”

“Hold on, you don’t have a room? I thought you said there was space when you invited me.” Iris’s murderous stare pierces her thoughts and she cringes at the thought of sleeping out in the open with _that_ around. 

“We do! I gave you my room, and I’m on the couch in the gathering room! I don't take up much space.”

She stares at him with a not-so-subtle expression of _I’m the one who’s taking up space on your ship_. The feathered nervous energy catches her.

“It’s really okay!”

“Yea but sleeping out here? What about...um…” she stammers.

“Oh.” He seems to understand and his voice lowers. “What, Iris?” io nods as if Iris might hear her shiver. “Oh I mean, yea, but this is technically her ship, even if I kinda help drive it; okay I helped once, just before we crash landed here. I mean landed. And she told me she doesn’t think it’s worth it to kill and eat me with all the feathers so it’s okay if I sleep in a common room!”

“She told you _what_?”

“IRIS!”

io whips back around and she stands there in the doorway, a towering demon highlighted by fluorescent glow on her bony shoulders and white knuckles. Chico crunches behind io on his chips again, and leaves it to io to make a single word past her uncomfortable and dreadful stare.

“Sssunsshine.” Iris hisses like a cartoon snake and io raises a hand in confused greeting.

“Iris, right?”

A slow nod, sordid bemusement apparent on her spidery mouth.

“Yesss.”

“Iris I was thinking! Uh, maybe you and io could try opening the storage room n-now that Rinzler’s got the back doors powered again? Maybe the two of you can get it open! I couldn’t by myself, but io’s stronger than me, I bet! A-and I'll help Rinzler with the last of the prep before we test the engine for real!”

io looks to Chico as if he’d stabbed her, but doesn’t dare say anything Iris might construe as hostile. She attempts to have that conversation entirely with her eyes but Iris, prying the refrigeration box open and dragging out a questionably smelly lump of something, speaks over her.

“Sssure.”

“Great!” He squawks, and the noise brings the ship’s last passenger to the kitchen in passive curiosity. io’s eyes brighten at the sight for sore eyes--she hasn't been awake for an hour yet--but Rinzler, in the same outfit as the last two days, looks like he’d been working all night. 

“You’re all up early.”

“Today’s the day!” Chico chirps, chip crumbs flying onto the table. “Takeoff day! Iris and io are going to open the storage room since you’ve fixed the assisted open functions, and I’m pretty sure we have more tools in there. And maybe if we clear it out I can make it another room for more visitors!”

“Oh yea?” Rinzler muses with a tone that echoes back to a short conversation in which io definitely admitted to being afraid of Iris--not that it really had to be said. She can hear him taunting her in his tone. “Cool, there isn’t much left anyway, but your fuel’s a little low so you should stop by one of the orbiting moons on your way out.”

“Moonsss.” Iris clicks, slinking toward io before grazing past her and slithering away to stand by the stuck door with a menacing smile that split her face in half. Her sour, coppery breath lingers like a cloud of poison. “Moonsss are too cold. Sssset up a dissstresss beacon. We’ll get more than jussst fuel.”

“Oho! A kidder! G-Good joke, Iris!” Chico forces an uncomfortable chuckle, mouthing an uneasy apology to io while he brushes the last of the crumbs off of his shirt. “She’s got tons of great jokes like that. A r-real bundle of fun! So great. Hope you two have fun with all that!”

A sharp, gaunt finger beckons to io, soulless eyes watching her every movement.

“Yesss. Fun.”

Inevitably, io ends up joining Iris by the storage room in quiet disappointment. _She couldn’t have the audacity to attack somebody helping her_ , io talks herself down from denying Iris the opportunity to actually speak for herself. Maybe Chico is right; maybe she’s only cursed to look like the blueprint of every classic horror movie monster. Maybe a shining personality hides underneath a layer of grime and jagged teeth. io’s footsteps are the only audible ones on the metal grate flooring and she eyes up the heavily skewed doors that must’ve been knocked off their rails in the crash landing, mentally scolding herself for misjudging her crewmate.

“Thisss room ussed to be for prissonersss of war.”

Nevermind.

io nervously taps her own arm.

“I thought this- Chico said it was a storage room?”

“Thisss issn’t hiss sship.”

 _Oh, right_. io’s fingers wrap around the metal edge of a door and she tugs as Iris does. In her proximity, the smell of rot slithers by io’s nose so pungent that she holds her breath while heaving. The door inches back with heavy resistance and she lets go.

“So the ship is...yours.” She says, and tries again.

“Yesss.” Iris pauses, her tongue rapidly flicking out from between her mandibles with ghoulish delight. “Thisss room hasssn’t been opened in weeksss. Feelsss like my hatching day.”

The creeping miasma reinvigorates Iris and she yanks the bulkhead open, the unholy screech of the rusty door like trapped souls being released from captivity.

“Ssshame you aren’t built for thisss tasssty meal. You’re misssing out.” Her mandibles click - is that laughing, or morse code? - and she struts into the storage room, a clawed fingertip catching the light switch on the way in.

Each light flickers on one at a time, the puzzle pieces of the room illuminated little by little. A pile of boxes marked “rations”, a few ramshackle cots and some tools next to an overturned cabinet. Aside from the peeling paint, the storage room seems wholly unremarkable to io. It isn’t until the last light warms up that the culprit of the stench is given a spotlight: a pile of musty bones and a couple scraps of spoiled, unidentifiable flesh.

“Oh, oh god-” The smell mixed with the sight is so intense that io’s suit kicks in as an emergency response, enveloping her head in a glass helmet and circulating fresh air. _60 minutes of breathable oxygen remaining._

“It’sss like being home again.”

“Your home looked like this?” io asks in disbelief, disengaging the helmet against her better judgment. She steps over a toolbox with unnecessary caution, unsure there isn't another fleshy landmine waiting for her under the debris. She stoops to pick up a can on its side, ‘Mantidae Meat Cubes: now at least 80% meat!’ Sounds promising. “Why did you, uh, leave?”

“In a sssociety of proud warriorsss, no one wanted to be overssshadowed. Especially when there’sss no real contessst about who isss sssuperior.” Iris scoops up a bone and snaps it over her knee, absently sucking the marrow out as she speaks. “Ssso on a raid I ssslaughtered every member of my thicket and left to conquer planetsss on my own. It wasss the only choice that made ssssenssse. Sssweet memoriesss…”

io drops the can and forces herself to stop watching Iris before she makes herself sick. She suddenly feels vulnerable even in a space suit. Instead, she kneels by the rusting cots and gives them a good shake to test their durability; they’d work in a pinch. She flinches when a strange bug crawls by her feet, a bulbous green jewel with legs that runs for the next uncovered shadow while io lifts up the toolbox. For the most part, the contents are recognizable.

_Planet conqueror. Of course._

“Then where did you meet Chico?” 

Iris’ mandibles click and chatter with excitement. She takes an uncomfortably long slurp from the bone, maintaining eye contact with io until its been thoroughly cleaned out.

“Chico isss my captive. My property. I took him hossstage after being sssurrounded by hissss tribe. He wasss ssssmart enough to not fight back.”

She flicks the depleted bone remnant to io’s feet, pitch black compound eyes wide and trained on the Earthling’s subtle shivers and twitches.

“He will be disssposssed of after I’ve achieved my goalsss. All of you will. Don’t bother telling the bird. He’sss convinced it’sss a joke.”

io lowers the toolbox and swallows audibly.

“Ah...right…” She says. “But why did you have him fly the ship? No offense...but he didn’t seem like the flying type of bird.” 

“Most civilizationsss are hossstile when they sssee sssomeone like me landing in their docksss. The ssssmart onesss.” She clicks from her throat again. “Sssso he isss the decoy.”

The silence that falls between them after that is unbearable, conversation deader than the fish bouncers io tested her suit on the day before. io grimaces at the fresh memory. Iris looks like she’s going to speak again, when the sounds of a stirring generator whoosh through the storage room and herald success--a working engine. Strewn tools rattle on the metal flooring and lights along the walls light up the entire ship’s interior. io can’t be more thankful for the timing. Celebratory hoots echo in from the hallway and grow louder.

“It works! We did it!” Chico’s talons excitedly skitter towards them until he’s almost flying into the storage room. Pale-faced io looks at Iris, who pretends that none of the previous conversation happened, then attempts to do the same. “Oh cool, you guys found tools and food!”

“And you got the engine started, I assume,” says io, smiling but cringing into her shoulders. Chico nods like a shaken bobblehead and Rinzler casually strolls in, but leans against the doorway. The air hums with excitement and io grins when he gives her a thumb’s up. How _generous_ of him to let Chico take credit.

“Ready to take off when you are. I wouldn’t wait too long, though--I wasn’t kidding about the fuel.”

Tension lifts off of io’s shoulders; sustaining a conversation, or whatever that was, with Iris is one of the most exhausting and terrifying experiences yet and she’s killed in self defense already. She joins all but Iris in the main control room, marveling at the buttons like she had when Ares showed her the classified room at Isotech. She had to be pulled away and promised hot noodles before she snooped into high security clearance files or discovered something that she might _actually_ get Ares into trouble for. _Bringing the future to humanity_. 

_Some future_.

She watches Rinzler man the station and tries to keep up as his deft fingers flip switches and route power to the engines. Lines of code blip across the display. It's an art she admires. She leans over the copilot’s chair basking in the screen’s glow and the feeling that she’s finally part of something big.

“You ever been on a space walk, io?” Rinzler asks rhetorically. He must know the answer; he’s just trying to get her attention as the pre-flight systems finish their final check. “Somebody told me it’s like being on a rollercoaster that just keeps going down. Even with weighted boots your stomach bounces around like a ball in a box. Nothing beats the view, though. I can at least vouch for that much.”

“What, like zero gravity?” She shakes her head. “No, never. Am I going to fly off into deep space?”

“Only if you jump too high without your tether!” Chico chimes in and io can’t tell if he’s joking.

“You should know what it’s like at least once,” Rinzler continues, “How about we go to the closer moon and I’ll show you how to refuel? If that’s cool with the captain.” His helmet turns towards Chico as the system check displays clearance for takeoff. ‘Captain’ is practically bursting at the seams.

“Time for takeoff!”

Iris resurfaces for launch, and all aboard the spacecraft settle into their seats. Rinzler and Chico sit in pilot and co-pilot seats respectively. io buckles a fraying belt across her chest and excitement bubbles underneath it, even though Iris stares at her from a miserable few feet away. io has never been in a spacecraft like this and it shows. She tucks her giddy legs underneath her and holds the seat, instead watching the monitors and spinning dials ahead. The entire ship rumbles. Louder, louder. Outside the window she watches smoke billow from below. Her helmet deploys when the roaring begins and finally, they take off.

 _Stabilizing air pressure_ , she hears as she squeezes her eyes shut. Her empty stomach churns. Like taking off in a plane, but if the plane was made from several mismatched sheets of metal and broken dreams. Beyond the safety of her helmet the ship shutters. io marvels at the atmospheric color change outside the window, and then wonders how Iris can be so unfazed by it. She looks bored.

 _Oh, right, planet conqueror_.

io breathes through her nose and sinks into her seat with the acceleration that doesn’t stop even after they leave the planet’s gravitational influence. The sky turns black outside. She focuses on fighting nausea from being shaken like a test drive dummy.

*

The tin can of a spacecraft finally lands.

Miraculously, nothing actually fell apart. Funny how a pilot really makes the trip. io looks to have melted in her seat regardless of the ‘smooth ride,’ pale in the face when her helmet disengages.

“You might want to keep that on.” She hears Rinzler say. “You’re fine in here but you’re going to need it to breathe outside.” He _also_ seems utterly unfazed by the trip, but perhaps that’s the difference between driving the car and being a passenger in it. He waits for her by the door. “Also you look like a corpse.”

“Reminding you that this is my _second time_ in space.” 

“Oh sorry, was it not as fun without the whole ‘spinal injection’ thing? I’m sure Iris can help with that.”

Iris’s clawed fingers curl as she mockingly waves.

“ _No_ ,” io grumbles, sinking further into her seat and unbuckling her belt, “Ass. Can I go with Chico?”

“Uh, I’d need to put a suit together first! It would have to be specially made because, y’know,” Chico motions toward his wings. “Aaaand...I don’t have a suit. At all.”

“I have a ssssuit.” Iris slips out from the seat restraints, heading for the storage area. “I insssissst. Ssssuch a fun activity, all alone…”

io stands on visibly shaking legs and while she doesn’t outright reject the gracious invitation, she musters the most convincing hard stare she can manage at her reflection in Rinzler’s helmet. How nice of him to strike while she had the disadvantage.

“By all means, _boss_ ,” her helmet closes over her sarcastic smile. “Please hold my _feeble corpse hand_ through getting this fuel or whatever so I don’t look bad for you and the rest of humanity.” She hits the button by the door with a closed fist and thankfully, it opens this time without needing to pry it open. The same fist bumps his arm on the way into the airlock.

“Oho, so the corpse has some life left in her.” He quips, casually following behind io.

After he joins her in the airlock, the door reseals and depressurizing begins. She follows his instructions, unwinding tether rope from its cobwebbed reel. Rinzler hooks it onto her suit and she returns the favor, though the tremor hasn’t left her hands. He stops her as the outer door opens and reveals white moon surface, open black space above. He gestures at his mouth and taps his helmet. _Suit communication_. She fiddles with settings.

“Can you hear me?”

“Yea.” A thumb’s up. He jumps down and she peeks outside with hands on the doorway railing. It’s...space, alright. Like everything else so far, an entirely new perspective to the universe she lives in. The planet she’d been standing on last night somehow looks grimier from afar. Rinzler moves along the side of the spacecraft and pulls a hose off of the side. Like an old gas station, but the end was longer. A drill, almost. “You coming?”

“Yes.” She inches forward.

“You’re safe out here.” He says, holding up the drill thing. “Nothing but rock and cold eternal space. And don’t you have a gun?”

“No moon monsters?” She climbs down with a tentative foot extended and strong grip still on the railings. “I’m shocked. And as far as I know, ‘gun’ doesn’t fix gravity problems.” Rinzler’s amused snort comes through as clear as crystal.

“You can let go, you’re not going to fly off into the nearest star.”

“See, I don't believe you.”

“Fair enough.” He extends a hand that she takes. She falls in slow motion, boots touching down so gently they might not have made a footprint. “I need you to hold the hose while I power the extractor. What you’re looking for are the pink nodes,” he points at a softly glowing spot on the ground with the rod, “and you’re going to stab it with this end, hold the trigger to lock it in place, press the button here to start it. Repeat until the meter here looks good. Easy.”

“I like it, sounds hard for me to mess up.” She works out kinks in the hose as he stabs the ground and can’t help wistfully looking up again at the planet. It should be Earth. She feels vibrations through the hose while it digs into ashy ground, neon pink substance traveling through the semi-transparent tube and disappearing presumably into the ship tank. Her gaze returns to not-Earth, and the other human being she lucked out in finding. “You think this is how the first astronauts felt, looking at our planet from the moon?”

“Er…” Rinzler hesitates, glancing between the rumbling extractor and the cloud-obscured planet below. He seems to be at a genuine loss for words. “Not sure if I’d be the one to say, honestly. I’m so far removed from being the ‘first’ that it doesn’t have the same sense of wonder that it might for you.”

He pauses, releasing a static-y sigh that he didn’t realize he had been holding in. 

“Once you’re not the first, it’s just business as usual. Nothing special about it. They shoot you out to do a job and come back, not to sightsee. Maybe the circumstances have sucked the joy out of it...”

io shifts her weight and straightens out the tube when she notices fuel bunching on a sharp bend. No kidding about needing the extra hands when the hose seemed to tie knots in itself if she so much as blinked.

“Yea that sounds like having a job.” Her brows knit together in concentration—and memory of repetitive accounting work. “Don’t know if it’s _classified_ , but I don’t remember asking, what were you sent out here to do?”

“Nah it’s cool, I get it. We-” A rickety gauge on the side of the extractor flickers to life once it dips into the red, and he nudges the power button with the back of his hand. “One sec, you need to find another vein for us to tap.”

“Oh, right.” She walks ahead slowly, as if still unsure, before taking more confident strides out further away. No pink. Open space above her looms like oceanic darkness; while io admires its mystique, she fears it, too. Her steps grow cautious again. She peers into a small crater that reveals several pink nodes in its shallow walls. “Uh...over here.”

“Good choice, just watch your step.” Rinzler‘s weighted boots dig into the soft moon’s surface as he slowly trots down the incline, dust gently rising to join its twinkling brethren. With a slight nudge the rod pierces the wall, and the extractor rumbles back to life once again. “Sorry, what were we talking about?”

“Your job. You know, what _the man_ sent you out here to do?” She says and tilts her head to the side in place of a raised brow.

“Oh, yeah. We were sent out to find more hospitable planets for humanity, years ago. For a better future, a brighter tomorrow…” Rinzler snorts. “But they sent us out too far, couldn’t retrieve us. Honestly, I dunno if they made the effort. But we adapted y’know? We carved ourselves out a little spot and made it home.”

"No shit…” she reflects, shaking out the hose. “I wonder how long they knew about the planet dying.” Spite turns into empathetic anger the further down the mental hole she goes. “How _fucked_ , to know about something like that, and willingly decide not everybody’s going to make it. And- and they send you guys out, for what? Planet colonization for whoever they decide gets to live? And even _you_ they treated like satellites, expendable resources! Go do this for us and then die out here. That’s your legacy.” io slows herself, falling into a thoughtful silence. Nothing but rock and cold eternal space. “But nobody talked about you or your mission; it’s like you never existed. Maybe Isotech or whoever it was knew how fucked up the mission was.” Perhaps they forgot about io, too.

The hose gurgles at her and she hurries to adjust it. A tender silence leaves her noticing how fast her heart beat in the heat of the moment. A distinct sameness that she finds in his situation.

“Would you want to talk to them again?” She asks, her spirit heavy and reaching for something. “Tell them off like the assholes they are with me? Get some closure and then, you know, keep deciding your own destiny after that?”

Rinzler grows silent in the face of io’s sudden explosion of righteous fervor, stuck staring at the neon pink highlighted helmet looking back at him. The way he perks up makes it seem like he’s hiding a smile under his opaque helmet.

“Ah...hm, look at that. Ship’s full.” He shrugs, turning the machine back off and easing the rod out of the wall. After a couple flicks the gauges on the side read green - back in business. “C’mon, we should get going.”

io recoils internally with embarrassment from touching the iffy subject, but rolls forward before the awkward situation hurts her ego any more. Why does she care so much about what he thinks, anyway? “Right, yea.”

She holds her tether and retreats about as carefully as she came out, but feeling like a balloon holding in unspoken words. No telling what part of the tirade did it. She drags the hose across the rocky moon surface back to their ship, where it rolls back up in its compartment. Rinzler snaps the drill back and gives her another thumb’s up before they climb back into the airlock.

Her tongue thaws when the sealed room pressurizes. Her helmet disengages.

“Hey, thanks for the crash course. This and the rest. I hope I can manage without you.” A bittersweet smile finds her lips, one that betrays her lack of confidence in her ability to fill his shoes. He doesn’t disengage his helmet, as expected. Part of her wishes she could at least see who he was underneath it. Enough touchy subjects for today, though. “Maybe I'll get some piloting lessons from the next engineer I save.”

“Already talking about other engineers, io? For shame!” Rinzler feigns heartbreak, dramatically placing his hand on his chest. “At least let me leave first so I can _think_ I was special.”

A single butterfly flutters in her stomach. “I mean…”

“Hey! How was it out there?” Chico pops in when the inner door slides open, but dark, thoughtful outer space hasn’t left io yet. His radiance burns like the sun.

“Fine.” She says while squinting. “The tank is full, so I guess the universe is ours.”

“Not yet.” Iris interjects and everyone rightfully ignores her.

“You guys are the BEST!” Even if she doesn’t understand his constant excitement, io livens at the praise. She brushes moon dust off of her boots and her chest swells a little.

“It’s the easiest thing Rinzler has taught me in the last three days.”

“Oh I'm so glad,” their jittery captain’s talons tap against the metal floor, “because IIIII have some good news too!”

Iris crosses her arms watching Chico flip through the main console display. A map appears with a pulsing mark. io understands none of what she's looking at.

“I got in touch with the news station! You know, the one that reported about your people?” He looks to io. “While you were getting fuel I got through to somebody. And guess what? They’re going to give us all the information they have about the guys who sent that broadcast. They’re going to talk to us! Well, you. They want to interview you. I told them you’re human.”

“ _Oh?_ ” io struggles to decide on just one emotion. “I mean... _why_ ? Are they- do they think I still _work_ for Isotech?”

“I'm not sure.” Chico looks to be in thought, rubbing his chin with his feathers. “I mean, don't you know them?”

io opens an incredulous mouth to answer the obvious but Rinzler beats her to it.

“How much are they paying you for the interview?” The question catches Chico off guard. He flutters.

“Ah- well they’re giving us a place to stay and providing each of us with vouchers to eat three meals at a five-star restaurant nearby!”

“Hold on, hold on,” Rinzler raises an impatient hand. “The only impression this galaxy has of humans is a threat. You want to fly into the protectorate with probably the least situationally knowledgeable human left, so she can do an interview that normally people get paid for, for _free_.”

 _Damn right! Wait…_ io’s lips press into a thin, annoyed line. He’s on her side, but at what cost?

“I-it’s an exchange of information, though, it’s the best lead we have…”

“Sure, but how are you going to park your ship? That costs money too. I should’ve done the talking.” He shakes his head. “How do you feel about it, io?”

She pauses, looking between them and weighing the options. There aren't any, which makes decisions very easy. Any lead that gets her closer to her goal, the colony, will do. She resigns with a one-sided shrug.

“I’ll do the interview.”

Rinzler tilts his helmeted head in what she assumes is disbelief, then his shoulders ease. “Alright then. Set the coordinates. If we start now the trip should be just under a week. If the ship doesn’t give out first, that is.”

Chico cheers and jumps to set their destination, Iris still indifferent to them all. io quirks a brow, very tired of asking questions all day but close to biting. _Didn’t you tell Bido you were coming back?_ Rinzler imitates her half-assed shrug.

“I've been meaning to get out of here for a while now. Nothing left for me. And you guys seem more fun.” She brightens.

“ _Fair enough_.”

“The real question is…” Rinzler folds his arms across his chest and leans against a bent metal panel, pressing his shoulder into it to try and lock it back into place. “Do you think you’re ready for that mug of yours to be plastered all over the galaxy? You’re gonna be the poster child for the ‘human deathmongers’ for a good long while.”

She gives him a pained smile, but one that sees some humor in the situation.

“I haven’t been ready for _anything_ since I woke up last week.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that concludes "Act I"!
> 
> Thank you for riding with us, and do expect some turbulence in the acts to come.
> 
> <3

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, and welcome aboard!
> 
> Please keep arms, legs, tentacles and eye stalks inside the spaceship at all times. By finishing this first chapter, you have relinquished all rights to sue in the case of modular displacement via black hole and/or other untested methods of space exploration.
> 
> Thank you, and enjoy your flight.
> 
> (Thank you to @ursus_canis on Twitter for beta reading. Visit @syntheticcangel on Twitter for visual character shenanigans)


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